BOOK REVIEW: THE ENDURING ENTERPRISE

AUTHORS: DEVIN DECIATIS & IVAN LANSBERG

Every family business in Uganda has a story. A beginning in sweat, sacrifice, and a little faith. A father who opened a shop in the 1980s with one bale of sugar. A mother who built a salon from her veranda. A son who took over and turned it into a supermarket chain. The story of enterprise here is never just about money; it’s about continuity, the stubborn determination to hold the line through good times and bad.

That spirit is at the heart of The Enduring Enterprise by Devin DeCiantis and Ivan Lansberg — a book that could easily have been written for Uganda. It explores how family firms in the world’s most turbulent regions survive and even thrive where others collapse. Their secret? Knowing what to hold onto, and what to let go.

Balancing Legacy and Change

DeCiantis and Lansberg argue that enduring businesses are built on adaptive continuity. They never lose sight of who they are, but they aren’t afraid to reinvent how they do business. The values stay — integrity, thrift, service but the tools evolve.

Uganda’s long-standing business families understand this instinctively. The Mukwano Group expanded from soap to plastics to real estate. Roofings turned steel into an ecosystem of industries. The lesson? Change what you must, but never forget what made you. Continuity without adaptability leads to extinction; adaptability without values leads to chaos.

Trust as Currency

In places where institutions are fragile and contracts unreliable, trust becomes the real currency. The book shows how, in frontier economies, relationships are the scaffolding of survival.

That truth rings loudly in Uganda. The trusted supplier in Kikuubo, the loyal driver who’s been with the family for twenty years, the cousin managing the warehouse, they are all part of the same invisible capital that keeps the business upright when banks tighten credit or policy shifts overnight.

DeCiantis and Lansberg call this relational capital. You can’t list it on a balance sheet, but lose it and you lose everything. Ugandan entrepreneurs would do well to guard it  by honouring their word, paying on time, and mentoring the next generation of trustworthy partners.

Resilience Beats Efficiency

Western business schools preach efficiency — cut costs, go lean, automate. But in frontier economies, the book argues, efficiency can be fatal. Lean systems collapse at the first shock.

Ugandan entrepreneurs already know this. The prudent trader in Owino keeps a stash of emergency stock. The factory owner keeps an old generator in storage. The family transport business maintains two trucks even when one would do. That “inefficiency” is actually strategy, what the authors call stabilizing slack.

In a world of rising uncertainty — climate shocks, currency swings, unpredictable taxes, resilience, not efficiency, is the true competitive edge.

Governance: From Founders to the Future

What kills most family businesses isn’t competition. It’s conflict. DeCiantis and Lansberg point out that the failure to plan for succession is the biggest threat to continuity. When founders pass without clear governance, families fracture, and assets scatter.

Uganda has seen this story too many times — thriving companies that collapse within a year of the patriarch’s passing. The cure, the book insists, is simple but seldom practiced: write it down. A family constitution, clear ownership rules, and a plan for leadership transitions can save decades of hard work.

Governance doesn’t kill family spirit; it protects it. It turns inheritance into stewardship.

The Frontier Mindset

Perhaps the most inspiring insight from The Enduring Enterprise is the idea of the frontier mindset, the ability to turn uncertainty into advantage.

Frontier businesses, the authors say, grow strong because they operate where nothing is guaranteed. They learn to improvise, diversify, and adapt.

That mindset is Uganda’s natural terrain. Whether it’s a family in Lira turning sunflower farming into an oil brand, or a Kampala trader pivoting from imports to local manufacturing, success comes from embracing the chaos, not fearing it.

Ugandan entrepreneurs are already masters of contingency — making payroll when the power’s off, finding customers when the shilling tumbles. The authors’ advice is to systematize that agility. Train teams to pivot. Keep backup suppliers. Build businesses modularly so one part can survive when another fails.

Purpose as a Survival Tool

What keeps family enterprises going through hardship is not just money, it’s meaning. The authors show how enduring families tell their story again and again, binding generations through shared struggle.

In Uganda, that story is everywhere. The grandmother who sold cassava to pay school fees. The father who rebuilt after Amin. The son who registered the business formally so the next generation could inherit it cleanly. These stories are not sentiment; they are strategy. They create identity, loyalty, and purpose.

Families that remember their story endure because they know why they began and for whom.

Lessons for Uganda’s Family Enterprises

From DeCiantis and Lansberg’s global examples come lessons tailored for Uganda’s own economic frontier:

• Govern early — don’t wait for crisis to decide who runs what.
• Preserve buffers — liquidity is resilience; never run too lean.
• Professionalize — let competence, not birth order, guide leadership.
• Diversify wisely — stay close to your core but spread your risk.
• Protect your reputation — trust is the most expensive asset to rebuild.

These may sound like old wisdom — because they are. But in a world as uncertain as ours, old wisdom is modern strategy.