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“The key to change… is to let go of fear.” – Rosanne Cash
Many people who have been connected to me in social media will have noticed I took a social media vacation this last while. Mainly to re-examine both my business and my life – I was fortunate to have a friend who cared enough about me to offer me a lot of insight and spent the time to help me examination things pretty closely. Mostly, he made me look at myself and accept things I was not aware I was doing, saying and being. Facing some of it has been hard.
This year has been a year of purpose for me, focusing on family and gaining insight about my future direction. It has also given me some time to re-examine the grand plan for both the business and my own direction and a number of themes have emerged.
- Purpose
- Authenticity
- Being with people
- Asking for help
- Letting go
- And my own valuation
I suppose I’m going through much of what any entrepreneur goes through when they find themselves on a road they never started out on and have lost their map. But it is much more than that. I have changed, my intentions for my purpose have been lost, and with that comes the awareness a great transition is necessary to right this wobbling boat.
Over the next few months I will be making changes to the business and to my life to get onto a path that is more in keeping with my own truth and talents, and be able to serve others more effectively and authentically. I will be creating the means to be more centered, more focused in a smaller, tighter package in order to remain true to myself personally and the reason I got into business in the first place – and I will be working to remain true to my family. I will be putting on the brakes with a few things, and it has been a very messy journey of processing and a filtering of thoughts, beliefs and ideas, but I guess transition can be messy – well, it has been this time.
I intend to share as things move forward, especially those changes which impact clients, readers, followers and anyone who might wander onto this blog with an interest.
This is more of a life-shift and each of the themes above will be driving forces in re-setting the direction.
In taking the quiet time I needed to work through all of the examination I shared with this friend, I have discovered crazy insecurities I thought were long past, renewed a sense of self and I have rediscovered purpose.
I am significantly impacted by this, and by the very personal experiences I have gone through over the last year while sitting in the side-car of my mother’s health journey. It is my hope I can offer a little more of the authentic Patti and avoid needing such intense privacy. It is also my hope that in not keeping my faults and struggles so private, I can better serve my purpose and the many people I value so dearly.
For your support and readership, I am ever grateful.
-Patti
Make it Grand!
 Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.
You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323 | contact her here | book her to speak
In work as in life, being present is not always possible…
And I have been absent. By the team or the client, absence is sometimes misconstrued as your having dumped people and responsibilities without out care or concern for their well-being, even when the absence has been unplanned and impossible to manage. Life throws some pretty big hits at people sometimes and when it does you’ll tend to do a resetting of priorities. Not everyone will like them, not everyone will be on your side with them, and some priorities may cause you to be absent in your role as leader. When this happens, the team members and clients are not the only ones affected. For an often engaged leader, the one folks depend on and have trusted, absence eats at their very heart more than the team or client will ever understand.
Life is about priorities…
We set priorities every day and our grown-up choices cannot always follow our dreams and desires. Parents quit their jobs to take care of ailing children, people leave big corporate to focus on community, folks take on the care of a sick parent and these are just a few of the life-changing priorities that may come into a person’s life. No matter what the choice is, all choices are good because they are yours. Some are influenced by tragedy, some by desire and yet others by love, either way a person’s priorities land front and center and can leave others feeling abandoned.
Not everyone will like it…
Any time you reset your priorities, it’s going to shake up the lives of those around you. People to whom you were once freely available will feel hurt, people who depended on you for your old priority will be frustrated and others will feel your absence has eroded their trust. The best you can do is try to explain and hope they compassionately empathize with your moment in time, and when that is not good enough, the best you can do is stand firm knowing you are doing the right thing for you.
It’s just the right thing to do…
Does it make you a bad leader? It can in the eyes of a team member or two, perhaps. The thing is, when people are hit by a reset of priorities, when life has offered them a chance to do the right thing for one person it might be the wrong thing for another. Off and on over the last year I have been blessed to spend some time helping my mother who has been very ill. Our loving, caring family have almost lost her 4 times, it has been a wild roller coaster ride of fear, love, sadness, promise, tears, hope and finally elation that she is now gaining strength. In that time some things have fallen through the cracks, my reputation for being always on, always available and provide a fast turn around may need to be rebuilt…but…
I’ve no regrets…
This priority reset is opportunity to honour the parents I love, by using the flexibility life has afforded me as an entrepreneur to be able to provide a little assistance. I do not and never will regret this choice. I can only hope that as things begin to settle down and life starts to return to what will be the new normal that those people I have been open and available to in the past will understand. In return, I will understand that each of them must meet their own priorities and if they are absent upon my return, it is because they are honouring their own lives, and that is all anyone can ask of another.
Just many thanks!
To those of you who have prayed, sent messages of kindness and who have continued to understand, I am in deep appreciation for your role in my life. Whether friend, client, team member, family, or acquaintance – your part in helping me stand by this priority has allowed me to focus on two people who have made my life what it is, my parents.
Thank you.
In work as in life, being present is not always possible…Life is about priorities…Not everyone will like it…It’s just the right thing to do…I’ve no regrets…Just many thanks!
Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.
You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323 | contact her here | book her to speak
…When Cultures Collide in Mergers and Acquisitions
Business consultants tell entrepreneurs to know their exit plan, and many focus on a merger or acquisition market as they build their businesses. This is especially true in the technology or engineering space, where valuations are done of a technology which may be attractive to larger firms looking to grow their offering.
When a valuation is being performed on a company prior to merging or acquiring it, that valuation is usually based solely on the financial side of the business. A careful calculation of the assets and liabilities, the varied business market, the intangible assets like trademarks or patents, financial reporting and more. A company does their homework before any merger or acquisition, and typically if a sale goes through, they feel confident they’ve made the right move.
But there is one thing that is rarely done… and that is a careful study of the differences between the company cultures. Culture is about shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that make up the “personality” of a given company. Personalities are important. Imagine, if you will, two people discussing getting married and they both have children and homes.
Of course ‘marriage is of the heart and this is business’, you say?
Well, two companies coming together needs to be treated like a marriage. If you were considering marrying someone, you do need to consider your partner’s financial health and see if it matches yours, but is that all you would look at? I would think you should see if there is compatibility of the values, attitudes and practices. How you raise your children and how they raise theirs may be so far removed from one another, you could be creating Armageddon rather than a loving, caring blended family. It could be that you are sending a child or two on a run-away spree, or will be forever burdened by being the nasty, horrible and wicked step-parent no matter how hard you try.
 image courtesy of Presentation-Process.com This little analogy is very apropos for M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) and cultural evaluations are starting to make headway in some M and A analysis of companies. Why?
Because after you buy the company and by the time you ask a consultant to come in and help with the messy change management of the two cultures, it can be too late.
It is imperative the company buying takes a careful look at the culture of the company being purchased and consider this in their valuation. A company purchasing a heavily creative and innovative group whose mandate it has been to focus on the customer may find their new family clashing with a process driven conglomerate whose focus is global spread and, trust me, that can be disastrous. In fact, in technology, the key component to a wise purchase is in determining how to retain the knowledge held by the employees. Your software is only as good as the people writing it, and you want them to stay.
I am not saying it cannot be done or to avoid the purchase, what I am saying is, you better already have a great plan in place for merging not only the technology or the company, but the cultures too. Doing your homework needs to be holistic, not finance specific, know what pitfalls and roadblocks you will suffer if culture is left out of the equation, or that beautiful valuation sheet may very well be worth far less once the knowledge has walked out the door.
There are things you can do to prepare in advance:
- bring someone in who understands how to evaluate cultures and
- work at building a plan of action toward a healthy merger or acquisition, upfront.
It behoves you to do so, because business is of the heart, and shouldn’t be about wasting money or losing talent.
Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.
You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323 | contact her here | book her to speak
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