American workers have been struggling with mixed blessings of merger and downsizing for over twenty years now. No wonder. It’s a challenge for any large system to rapidly expand and contract without putting unnecessary strain on the people who make up that system.
I’ve been working with the emotional impact of these changes on employees since the early 80’s. Back then my clients were principally working in smokestack industries, companies located in Illinois, Ohio, andPennsylvania. Before long, financial institutions were hit hard and clients came primarily from the east and northeast. Then it became open season. No publicly held company was safe.
It hit home when my clients were my neighbors. They were from here. They still are.
The feelings, frustrations, and challenges those early clients shared are the same as those I hear today:
Mergers, friendly or hostile take longer and are more complex than their proponents estimate. Employees who are affected (and everyone is affected) move to Limbo, which is located somewhere between Work as We Knew It and A Brand New Day. While in Limbo they learn the native dance.
Rules for doing the Limbo: employees bend over backwards to pass under a bar. The more flexible, the more likely they are to succeed. When they do, the bar is lowered and the dance repeated. Their goal is to accomplish whatever they can, heading backward, looking skyward, moving forward.
There are three ways to leave Limbo: don’t follow rules, fail at following rules, be limber enough to get to A Brand New Day.
Not everyone experiences mergers in the same way. Some employees are catalysts for change and welcome transition. Others are survivalists who find order in chaos. Some plainly see opportunities their more grim faced colleagues miss. What they all struggle with is the tangled time it takes for employee roles and goals to be re-positioned and re-aligned so that everyone knows who gets to play in the new game and who doesn’t.
No matter your perspective, what counts is traveling through Limbo as a survivor and not a victim. Here are some ways to book passage:
- Develop a goal focused, three option plan so that you can choose whether you want to become part of the new organization; you want an exit strategy; or you want time to decide where your best interest lies.
- Develop tactics essential to each option:
Tactics for merger survival:
- Know what you bring to the table and its value to the company. Spell it out whenever appropriate.
- Be consistently trustworthy, flexible, and pragmatic; responsible as well accountable.
- Focus on outcomes.
- Have a Plan B.
Tactics for a successful exit (otherwise known as Plan B):
- Do all the above.
- Develop a search process:
Mobilize external networks of contacts to include accountants, developers, commercial lenders, attorneys and consultants who you know and who are likely to know employers needing individuals of your caliber and capability.
- Learn more about prospective companies than their advertising implies. You’re looking for a good match more than a place that looks good.
Tactics for buying time:
- Do all the above.
- Evaluate your strengths and skill sets relative to the merged company’s direction.
- Determine which are value added, redundant, and/or irrelevant.
- Make your decision.
- Take action.
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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:
Joyce Richman (www.joycerichman.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com
