The Creativity Suite. Episode 163: Active Legacy

The Creativity Suite. Episode 163: Active Legacy

Interview with Christos Karagiannakis, CEO at Kotsovolos.

 

 

It’s time to rethink what we think “legacy company” means.

Today the word “legacy” means something impactful that took place in the past.

So a “legacy company” is a business that has been established for a long time and has a well-known brand, history, or influence in its industry.

But the original meaning of the word “legacy”, from the 14th century, is actually “body of persons sent on a mission,”

In other words, “legacy” was a forward-looking activity.

We need to get back to that mindset when we look at legacy companies.

To get the right focus, let’s talk about “Active Legacy” as in “the act of rethinking what we do in order to continue to thrive for a long time.”

I learned about “active legacy” from Christos Karagiannakis, CEO at Kotsovolos.

Kotsovolos is a legacy Greek retailer specializing in household appliances and electronic products, established in 1950.

Kotsovolo’s legacy has been retail electronics.

But this industry is quickly transforming.

Historically appliances were “dumb”.

Now this is changing.

Suddenly a dishwasher can go online and check the price of electricity and decide to wash the dishes in the middle of the night.

This opens up a whole world of opportunities for new products, services and solutions.

I asked Christos for three pieces of advice for how to apply a mindset of “active legacy”.

He said

Re-evaluate.

Always be thinking of how existing capabilities can be converted to new types of skills.

Be ambidextrous.

You need to be able to handle both the old business model while developing the new.

Reverse mentoring.

You need the executive team to be very solid in how the business performs and at the same time you need to make sure they are getting insights about what is now possible, so by assigning “reverse mentors” where younger staff who understand the changing environment are mentoring their more senior managers is valuable.

A legacy company is not a legacy company because of what they have done in the past. Instead they are still around because they have been able to change with the times.

Remember “legacy” is an active, forward-looking word. A phrase that originated as a description of someone on a mission.

Want to be around for a long time and become a “legacy company”? Then practice “active legacy”.

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