Strategic Sense » People

Human Capital and Culture

Patti Blackstaffe — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:49:33 +0000

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are an enormous effort for the companies involved. Not only are you busy putting process and financials together between two companies, every single level of the organization must take on a ‘change role’ as they begin to integrate.

There are several ways we see this managed by the companies involved:

Push: The larger acquiring company pushes it’s systems down to the acquired company and defines a “This is how we do things here” stance.
Handshake: The two companies take the time to evaluate the systems and processes in order to determine which ones will work best for the newly forming organization.
Separation: The companies are tied at the highest level, but the two companies work and function with autonomy from each other with exception to the reporting levels.
Pull: This happens when a very small company is purchased by a larger organization, often you will see the small company become a department or branch of its own, taken under the wing of the parent company.

Many of us have been through one or many M&As in our working lifetimes and we all have an opinion as to how it was handled, how smooth the integration and how effective the changes were. In many cases the changes are seen as negative experiences and there is a reason for that.

M&As occur for a variety of rationale, a company wishes to partner with another company who has a compatible product – a marriage of sorts. A company will need to improve their portfolio based on a particular direction they wish to head or a company may wish to corner a market and cannot do it alone, but needs the product or strength of another company to accomplish that task.

One of the actions that can be abandoned in this process is the due diligence of evaluating a mix of varied cultures and the effect bringing those cultures together may have on the organization. Cultural compatibility is necessary for ensuring that the very expensive investment made in the new company will be realized with an appropriate ROI (return on investment) for the product being purchased.

If any of you have older teens who have dated someone with a completely different family background than yours, you know what I am talking about when I say marrying cultures. You can see the differences pretty clearly, but those teens are rather blind to what the issues may be. If they carry forward into marriage, there will always be some serious road-blocks as they work their way through those differences.

In the beginning, the excitement of what “could be” doesn’t take very long to turn into “uh oh” as the two organizations begin to define their “show stoppers” and “must haves”. Understanding the risk you take in cultural incompatibility is vital in managing that integration.

Change is always hard, it is our human nature to avoid it at all costs and instead rest in our comfortable way of doing things. The last thing any company wants is to pay 8-50 million dollars only to see the product knowledge walk out the door and risk the product and the investment all together. Your ROI includes the people involved, M&As are best accomplished with a people approach.

Patti is a strategic advisor in Leadership Development, Customer Service and Culture through Mergers and Acquisition. You can book her to speak at her Speakers Page.

Need Strategic Sense for your business? – hire us for Leadership Development of individuals & teams, group training and company strategy. Happy Workplaces Succeed, take the path to get there. 403-201-8512

To Fire or Not to Fire – Perhaps NOT!

Patti Blackstaffe — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:25:41 +0000

Two people I know in the recreation industry were chatting this week and I learned something that gave me a smile regarding the difference in leadership there and in some large corporate settings.

Recreation is a different kind of business, it is weather dependant and many decisions must be carefully planned, but implemented in last-minute crunches. For people in the recreation industry, it is even more vital to apply careful upfront planning prior to season changes due to the havoc delivered from an early fall, early spring or significant alterations in expected weather.

Most folks in the recreation industry serve their customers in an outdoor venue, such as ski venues, winter/summer tours, heli-skiing, river rafting, golfing, etc. and are almost entirely weather dependant. They are more so during the opening and closing months for their industry. Significant dollar losses and gains are possible almost by the hour. It’s highly recommended that the long-time experts in the industry own the responsibility in decision-making onsite due to the delicate nature of profit and loss during these seasons.

So what did I learn in the conversation?

One of the individuals was being asked to cut costs. In corporate, that typically means getting a list of employees, figuring out if any are dead-wood or if any are low performers and cutting employment. Production slows slightly, but responsibility for duties seems to slide to one of their co-workers and corporate will describe it as pulling up the bootstraps.

Not in this particular instance, the Recreation Industry Manager was charged with reducing costs without a significant hit to the delivery of a great product. So here is what they did:

They cut all company Data Phones from the budget.

Why? It is a lot more expensive to replace knowledgeable people than it is to replace cellphones. Did they cut a larger number of phones than people, sure did, but wouldn’t it be great to work at a place that cared for the people more than the phone?

(Can you imagine management staff in a corporation believing they can even ‘live without’ their Data Phones?)

In the recreation industry employees are vital to a single role. For instance; a lift operator on a ski hill can’t double as a ticket seller at the same time has operating heavy equipment; a river scout can’t guide 12 people down a wild white-water river ride and manage to drive the busses to the end-point at the same time; and a golf pro can’t double as your grounds keeper while teaching members how to golf. Begin cutting people, and you will dangerously hack away at your customer experience (which is what customers are really paying for).

Remember, recreation is what consumers spend money on when they have a little extra. When they spend money on recreation, they want the best experience possible with a rush of fun, excitement and pleasure that can’t be gained in an office setting. Customers want to arrive knowing the whole operation is running smoothly and safely AND they want choices. People don’t want to find out that the 18 holes they booked to play was reduced to 9. They don’t want to wait 3 hours because 3 boats were scheduled to go down river, but because of budget cuts, only two will go and the third will follow later.

Many lessons can be learned by following the Recreation industry and their experts, the people who have been managing and running them for over 25-40 years and who know their stuff. They have been through a lot of down-turns, a lot of weather changes and a good-deal many daily decisions made instantly, expertly, and with the understanding that change is not their enemy but their friend if they are prepared for it with upfront planning. It is, after all, a business that needs to remain profitable to continue offering those exciting experiences that keep the rest of us sane.

Are Your Employees as Satisfied With Their Leaders as the Leaders Are?

Patti Blackstaffe — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:45:02 +0000

I am going to begin this post by letting you know that we work with many fantastic leaders who really care about their people. You know the ones, these are folks who truly want to be great leaders, their staff loves them and they’re doing most of the right things to inspire, motivate and encourage staff. As a result, the ‘best-of-the-best’ stay at their company, their productivity is fantastic and their culture rocks. So why do they hire a Leadership Strategist? Because truly GREAT leaders know they don’t have all the answers, that there is room to grow and because they want to kick it up a notch and make a difference, extending their skills in leadership helps them truly Make the Mark!

What are compelling and interesting are the comments I receive from the people in the trenches, regular every day employees who are doing all the functions to make that business run. I’ll be out at a party or a networking event and someone will ask me what I do. When I say, “I am changing the world one manager at a time”, they almost always comment, “Oh my God, our company sure needs you! The managers at our company make it unbearable. It’s so difficult to show up every day and I am nauseous driving to work. I like the work I do, but there is absolutely NO leadership in our company, it is ALL about the spread sheet!”

Sound familiar? The shocking news is this, that’s the norm and not the exception for many large companies. An even more shocking piece of news is that the managers in these companies truly believe they are great! They don’t hire external consultants in leadership or management development, and many of them are not working diligently to put effective programs in place to retain their most exceptional people or create a better culture. They are executive to middle managers who believe they have nothing more to learn about leadership, yet they are the ones who need it most.

This proves a few points I have discovered in the launching of my own business:

1. A marketing concept that many of us will be familiar with is: ‘people don’t buy what they need, they buy what they want!’ Poor leaders don’t seem to WANT to be better leaders, or they’re not measured on leadership acumen.

2. People or companies who do budget in personal or career development for their leaders truly care about investing in themselves and their company. Great leaders WANT to become even greater.

3. In companies with a struggling culture, there is a significant disconnect between what the executive to middle managers believe and what the rest of the employees actually feel.

Those three topics could incite a full thesis on leadership and management, but I’ll leave that for another day.

With the information above, I challenge you to take a good hard look at yourself and your company. Do a double-take and hip-check on your attitude about growth and personal development. If you’re in the trenches wanting to reach middle management or executive leadership, think about what you’re willing to do now to work on being the best you can be and study to be an exceptional leader.

If you were able to improve on your leadership skills and understand what it takes to really care about the people, would it be worth it? What if you knew that it really is the people who drive the success of the company, wouldn’t you want to make sure you did your best to support them?

What kind of investment are you willing to make? Isn’t your best investment always in yourself?

Life is a cycle with many growth spurts, no one has all the answers (not even me) and here is the deal, those willing to accept that they still have lots to learn are those who will affect the world in the most positive manner.

I choose to be the best I can be. I choose to make a difference by positively affecting the people in my organization. I want to be a great role-model and an exceptional leader. Because of this, I read as many professional and personal development books I can. I take part in as many opportunities as possible to glean knowledge from people who I admire and believe are living the leadership dream.

Start now, if you’re not a leader, start before you get there. For those of you already in a position of affecting the lives of your employees get on board! Recognize there are always ways to improve, always ways to kick it up a notch! Be a Manager Making the Mark!

By Patti Dragland

President, Strategic Sense Inc.