The past 4 years have been more unpredictable and more frustrating than many of us would have expected let alone wanted. At the beginning of this time of uncertainty, we were approached to merge our company with another larger one with the promise of greater of stability for our clients, and a more solid grounding for us as part of a larger concern.
We were wrong.
Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing and there are no mistakes, only lessons learned. I hear this rhetoric ringing in my mind daily. The acquisition of our company was fraught with problems from the onset; sometimes what you think you’ve bought and what you actually receive, are two entirely different things. We were blissfully unaware of the extent of any internal politics, mismanagement, narcissism, nepotism, accusations and untruths that waited for us ‘after’ we joined.
So, what do you do in business when you find yourself in an untenable position? Speak out or stay quiet?
Logic tells us that negotiation is best. Some people are better at this than others (particularly if you have a bad temper like mine where I always call a spade a spade). Look for ‘win-win’ is what we have been taught and practiced since the very first day of work, but the hardest but most crucial part of any business are its people as they are the ones who take care of the clients. By joining with a company that had more internal issues and egos than we bargained for, we let our people down and consequently our clients. We spoke out, didn’t work. Lesson learned.
In the past 2 years, we tried the opposite approach.
We stayed quiet, after a time we set up a new company, rebuilt our team of people, and waited to see if the clients (new and old) would remember us kindly or not. ‘If you build it and they will come’ so the saying goes. Now, sometime later, we are smaller but stronger than before, our clients have mostly chosen to forgive us our significant error in judgement and, more importantly, our people have come home again. The family is back together.
We still have a long way to go, but we have learned a lot over this terrible and turbulent time, and have brought our people together closer than before, dare I say stronger than before.
Does it mean will we in future stay quiet in all that we do? Not at all actually. Quite the opposite. But we will continue to stay small and take care of our people who take care of our clients.
