“I love to learn new things,” says Welison Evanston “Weevens” Ty, 38, vice president for production and administration of Wellington Flour Mills, one of the country’s top millers. In Ateneo de Manila University’s Psychology Department, where Weevens teaches part-time, he is known for his enthusiasm for creating new courses. [Full disclosure: Weevens is my colleague.]
Having worked in telecommunications after graduation, Weevens says that “learning new things” is also his main reason for joining the family business three years ago.
Weevens and his cousins were not exactly groomed for succession. Family patriarch Norberto and his wife Salustiana Ty started the flour business in the 1960s, in the same plot of land in Pasig City where the company stands today.
Children came in quick succession: the eldest, Wellington, after whom the flour mill was named; Welison (Weeven’s father), the current board chair; William, the vice-chair; Washington, the president; Wilfredo, the treasurer; and six other siblings. Siblings’ names start with W: “double V, double victory.”
“Grandma Salustiana said we should never go into debt. This makes it harder to expand, because we never get loans, but she had good reasons for saying it.”
While they were growing up, the third generation was “distanced from family issues.” Weevens would meet his cousins at family gatherings, but “we only grew close while working together now.”
As a child, Weevens would visit his father and chat with the secretaries, but he did not work summer jobs or intern in the business. “We were given the go-signal to pursue what we desired.”
Thus, Weevens’ entry into the family business became a baptism of fire.
Compromise
Weevens is passionate about psychology, and now holds a doctorate. He interned at a hospital, working with cancer patients. What would faze others energized him instead. Weevens had found his passion—and it was not flour milling.
“If you take psychology away, I will die,” he says.
However, in 2007, the second generation decided that it was about time that the younger people, 30 of them by then, to enter the business. Who were willing to leave their jobs? Who showed interest? Who had skills that could fit the company?
The board did not play favorites. They hired an executive search firm, which took care of testing and interviewing Weevens and his two cousins, Anthony, 40 and Eugene, 37.
Because he wanted to finish his doctorate, Weevens deferred his entry into the business by two years. His two cousins first became management trainees, mentored by professionals, such as engineers and quality-assurance specialists. Eventually, they focused on finance and sales, and remarkably, they did not report directly to their parents, but instead, worked under their uncles.
“Deciding to join was a struggle,” says Weevens. His heart was in psychology, but his mother advised him to “accept and see what you can do.” Early on, he made things clear: after official working hours, he would be free to do what he wanted, including teaching part-time, and now, studying for his MBA in Ateneo Graduate School in Rockwell.
MBA work meant that Weevens sometimes had to leave the office on Saturdays. “My leaves were deducted from my salary, which is fair. If we exceeded our meal and gasoline allowances, we had to pay for the excess. These rules were all put clearly in writing.”
Weevens admires his father, knowledgeable in production, and his uncle Wellington, “an innovator and a strategist,” who passed away before he entered the business. “I would have loved to work under him, given his leadership style.”
“I had to learn things on my own. My psychology background was invaluable. I spent days questioning managers, calling for meetings, doing lots of research.” His cousins had a year to learn the business, but since Weevens came late into the game, he had to cram.
“I made lots of mistakes, some costly. At times I wanted to quit, but I was learning.”
Upon the invitation of the US Wheat Growers Association, Weevens, with other Filipino flour millers, visited sites of wheat planting, harvest, production in America. He attended classroom sessions, which were an eye-opener into the business.
Next generation
“Dynamism, enthusiasm, energy, structure” are the main contributions of the third generation. Under Weevens and his cousins, Wellington Flour Mills has “leapfrogged [over] some [competitors], even if we are a niche player, at the premium end of the flour industry.”
Most family businesses suffer from a generation gap, where the younger people feel that their elders are old-fashioned. “The second generation is hyper-risk-averse,” Weevens says, but apparently, the third generation have proven themselves.
“The board has strong opinions about how the business should go forward, but now, they would ask our opinions. Operations are now left to us.”
“Non-family board advisers have experiences outside the family business, so their perspectives are invaluable. Sometimes I would seek a non-family board member, and he would help me get the message across.”
The business has around 150 employees, with low turnover. Compensation and benefits are competitive, flour millers are given training. “Our elders treat the employees as barkada, on a personal level, while we cousins are more business-like, expecting them to do reports and meetings.”
The dual treatment works, and employees have grown close to one another—a reason why they stay with the company.
To young people who may be reluctant to pursue a business degree, Weevens advises, “Study what you want, but for your electives, take finance or accounting. When I knew I would enter our business, I took advanced industrial-organizational psychology, [instead of another clinical psychology], as an elective.”
“Crossing disciplines” is win-win. “In my psychology classes, I give real-life scenarios, such as dealing with government regulations, not in books, which my students are interested in. In business, I use psych to deal with our people, to design their training.”
Weevens is already thinking about the fourth generation. “What legacy will we leave behind?” To answer this, Weevens continues to learn.
(Queena N. Lee-Chua is on the Board of Directors of Ateneo de Manila University’s Family Business Development Center. Get her book “Successful Family Businesses” at the University Press (msanagustin@ateneo.edu.) E-mail the author at blessbook.chua@gmail.com.)