About Being Bought
After 61 years as a family business, our company was just sold to a $250 million corporation. We’ll operate independently, and everyone will keep their jobs. Everything is the same, but it isn’t. How do I, as president, and my employees make the quickest adjustment to our new world?
Congratulations, and congratulations. The first for the deal itself since you and your top team probably did pretty well cashing out. And you should feel great about the financial rewards of building a company that the market loved.
The second congratulations is for realizing that, even though everything might look the same going forward, nothing will be. You’ve been acquired. You and your people now work for someone else. And even if that someone else likes you very much, they will have their own way of doing things. hr will have a new way of appraising people. Finance will have a new way of formatting the numbers. There will be new processes, policies, and procedures galore.
And so the quickest and most appropriate way for you to adjust is to buy in. You don’t have to stifle yourself. But your energy about change should be positive and any criticisms constructive. No moaning about how “we used to…” or groaning about how “it was better in the old days.” Very bluntly, you gave that right away with the cash-out.
Being acquired is one of the most traumatic upheavals a company can live through. For you, money may have taken away the sting. But if you want your people and organization to thrive—and clearly, you do—then your message must be simple: The past is over. Get on with the new.
This question and answer originally appeared in Business Week magazine on July 24, 2006.
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