Whenever M&As happen everyone always speculates on the manpower outcomes. Who will stay and who will go. Often a smaller acquired company is left to be a wholly owned subsidiary with its management intact until something goes wrong or changes dramatically. That's what happened to a company where my client is interviewing for the CEO role. It was geographically distant from the parent company. Further, it was bought for both the technology and the talent who could deliver it.
It's a small unique engineering company located in central California. The founder sold it to a well-known company in Kansas and stayed for 4 years to ensure a successful transition. Now the search is on for a new CEO. Here are the search challenges:
There are moments when retained search firms earn every dollar they charge. This was one of them. Several candidates were put forward and rejected prior to my client. My client and I prepped for the in-person interview with the search firm. Here are the interview issues we addressed:
The interview is not about the product and service of the company. It is not about how skilled and experienced the potential candidate may be. It is about corporate culture, values, and emotional intelligence. All soft stuff, very hard to probe within the context of an interview. Better to spend time the company and candidate together to get to know each other over lunch, dinner, group meetings and on-site trips. It is a career derailer to take a position that is not the best fit for you at this level. Nor should a company hire at this juncture a CEO that doesn't have a 90% chance of success. It is a crucial transition in the acquisition process when the old management steps aside. The entire success of the company can hang in the balance: wittness the fiasco of the MacDonalds - Boston Market acquistion. Finding and hiring the best talent is always a challenge but a Merger & Acquisition situation makes it especially a deal-breaker.
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Too often I have seen executives come out of specific corporations noted for their strong cultures and not do well in adjusting to a radical career move into a much different culture. I read in Deal and Kennedy's book, Corporate Cultures, that the founders of an organization set the tone and the style of the culture.
I suppose this is obvious when you look at companies with notable CEO's such as Apple's Steve Jobs, Berkshire or Hathaway's Warren Buffet. It is less obvious to connect the style of IBM to Thomas Watson the primary CEO who grew the company from selling typewriters to a computer manufacturer. Can we see the imprint of Henry Ford anymore on Ford Motor Company, or of Christian Dior on the House of Dior? It seems the farther was the organization is from its early roots and founder in terms of time and even geography the more imperceptible the origin of the culture becomes. I mean where is Erle P. Halliburton's ghost now that the company moved to a new HQ in Dubai? Nevertheless, the imprint of custom, tradition, and personality remains in how the employees conduct business, interact with each other and the world. A former hedge fund and derivatives operative from a prominent, infamous investment banking firm inquired about my services. The dynamics of the process with him was interesting. Once he determined that he wanted to engage my services he started to negotiate the deal. To him it was just a normal business transaction and his way of doing it. He started on price, even though I offer multiple packages at different flat rates that are substantially lower than my hourly rate, he tried to haggle over my fees. When that didn't work he turned to terms and conditions by trying to combine multiple packages and extend the time spent by breaking down sessions into 30 minutes each...all, of course at the lowest rate. I decided not to work with him as our styles just did not match as he comes from a culture that is deal driven and so he is and I am so not. The moral of the story is that we all come from multiple unique cultures, not just your family of origin, but your professional field, and the organizations where you have been employed. Developing your awareness to your personality and behaviors traits enable you to make better "fit" decisions when evaluating your career options. This headline would normally be an announcement of a planned military offensive rather than economic initiative. But it is all the same now isn't it? Any professional not paying attention to US based companies moving offshore in search of new markets will lose out on opportunities to pursue. These companies do not just hire Chinese nationals to expand their demographics and penetrate into new markets.
KFC, Pizza Hut push deeper into China CAROLYNNE WHEELER BEIJING— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, May. 10, 2011 7:10PM EDT Last updated Wednesday, May. 11, 2011 5:20AM EDT Yum Brands adds to fast-food restaurant stable with popular hot-pot chain, Little Sheep The Colonel's secret recipe in China has more to do with egg tarts and breakfast fritters than how he spices his chicken. The KFC menu in China is heavily adapted to local tastes - think rice dishes and hot soy milk alongside the classic fried chicken and hot wings. The variety of offerings - along with a ubiquitous market presence - has helped the chain take off in China. Now Yum Brands Inc., YUM-N KFC's parent company, is trying to fend off competition from domestic rivals and foreign competitors like McDonald's Corp. MCD-N by buying up a popular hot-pot chain, Little Sheep. Their preliminary offer for the Inner Mongolia-headquartered chain is still subject to regulatory approval, but if successful would add nearly 500 more restaurants to their China fold, which now includes more than 3,800 KFC and Pizza Hut locations. The move shows the importance of the Chinese market for fast-food chains that are struggling at home. Yum Brands is the largest fast-food operator in China and its business here played a crucial role in its first-quarter earnings this year. Worldwide operating profit was up 5 per cent, thanks largely to 18-per-cent growth in China, even as profit dropped 13 per cent in the United States. For the rest of the story in Canada's Globe and Mail click here. "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Alert Einstein
All companies look for a bundle of skills attached to a set of experiences embedded in a specific sector or market vertical. They will make exceptions during good times when talent is hard to lure away from other companies.
But with so many people out looking and unemployed they want the perfect fit. This means that the : skill/talents+experience/credentials+sector/market vertical fit = perfect candidate. What is depressing is that so many people with talent and ability go begging for jobs because they don't have sector experience. I have seen people continue to try to break through that barrier with little success. One solution is to do pro-bono work in a new sector and put it on your resume to move you across the sector chasm. Last year my client conducted a very successful job search. He moved up from Director to Vice President and into a company that was a much better fit for him.
I have to laugh at his complaining about the efforts his search entailed. Given he took less than 4 months to land a new position while the average executive search is at least six months. Here are some of his experiences that I can pass on to you.
Because we built a great website for him, because he blogged religiously, because he was well-branded and visible online, he was well-received in advance of an interview by hiring decision-makers. I still keep thinking about the elegant and simple solution one of my clients had for the customer service backlog challenge they faced in a new position: Start from Where You Are.
Since he told me, I have found so many examples in my business and personal life where I have not done that and it has taken me years to get caught up and in some cases I have yet to do so. The epiphany I had today was with my client database. I have spent years trying to catch up on my client database starting at the beginning to bring it current so that I can keep in touch with them. That’s when the light bulb went on today. I need to just work on the database of current clients and then back-fill year by year going backwards to catch up with previous clients. Obviously, I have never caught up. In fact, I kept falling farther behind and I never will because of the nature of the escalating cycle. But I can be current now and go forward from here. Do you realize what a satisfying relief that is? There is nothing worse in business and careers to be in a self-fulfilling feeling of failure because of a mission impossible. How many companies continually set their employees up for the same demoralizing never-catch up cycle with every reorganization, merger and acquisition or new process? No wonder the change over to a different IT system, business process or cloud program is resisted. Whenever change happens people fall behind in their work unless it is handled properly. How many managers have the innate common sense that my client used? Start Where You Are Now. Certainly when making a career transition into a new industry or sector we struggle with starting with where we are now? We seem unwilling to leave our previous history behind. I seen professionals want to keep things on their resumes from 20, or even 30 years ago. They fail to realize that prospective employers Start with Where You are Now and they don't go back very far in your history to see how good a match you are with them. I heard a saying a long time ago that now in the context of this model makes perfect sense: Stop driving with the rear-view mirror. If you combined that with: Start Where You Are, then you have the ingredients of a dynamic forward moving life and career. http://www.kued.org/productions/utahnow/thejob
With an unemployment rate that has doubled over the past two years and a shifting economy, "The Job" begins to explore how all this has changed the expectations and realities of work. Produced by the Utah NOW team of Doug Fabrizio, Dave Castleton, Erik Nielsen, and Gary Turnier, this KUED documentary features the stories of people who left stable jobs to follow a dream. But there are also stories of those who couldn't make the dream work. "The Job" traces the history of work and the changing role of work in our lives and it chronicles the humiliating experience of losing a job and the daunting challenge of trying to find one. I was having my monthly coaching session with my client, a successful marketing vice president in an online media company. We were discussing her current efforts in balancing home, family with new job, book proposal and a daily 2 hour commute.
She is one of the most dedicated and driven professionals that I have met. I have been with her career growth for over ten years now from dot.com companies through multiple graduate degrees, along with coast to coast relocations, marriage, and a baby. When her mom died in last year she had to fly to Europe to attend the funeral. Her then employer penalized her for taking time away from her position and she was summarily laid off after returning from the funeral. She landed an even better position in less than 2 months, a record in this economy, but again faces the challenge of keeping her life in equilibrium. She used to be the one to rescue a floundering company and do anything meet the goals and deliverables. But the lessons of the corporate political arena have instilled in her a wariness that has enabled her to back off her typical knee-jerk readiness to save the day. The latest test of her balance came with her agreement to write an interactive book. Talk about scope creep, the publisher went from a small book on a narrow but very interesting topic to an expansive book and a much more general topic . She would not have benefited from this expanded version as it would curtail follow on books and derail a potential series. And she would have to rewrite the proposal that she had already done. Her time was stretched too thin as it was. In revisiting her own career goals, priorities for balance and the value of a multi-book series for her professional stature and thought leadership, she decided to renegotiate with the publisher back down to the original agreement. Bottomline was as she put it to me, " No job loves you like your family loves you." I might add publisher as well. She has her priorities straight. A client was discussing the management change that led to his ouster from the executive team and the company when the new CEO brought in his own people.
It's an old story in terms of corporate politics that has never changed over the years. In this case the new CEO kept only those executives that were customer facing and board facing which was a very smart decision on his part. Unfortunately, the vice-president, my client, was in neither position. The CEO took out three vice-presidents in one day. Did my client see it coming? No. That is the curse of a blessed career with no roadblocks or derailments, when it finally hits it is hard. I have always thought that a little misery and suffering at the front of your working life is far better than reversals of fortune on the back end. As we climb to the top, our career success becomes less and less dependent on the companies we choose to work for than it does on the management teams who surround us. In the blush of youth, we often put aside cultural fit, corporate value match, in favor of opportunity, advancement and doors opened. But, in the full bloom of our career-life it pays to be cautiously aware of the fit as it can determine the upward trajectory of our careers. And in the end, our relationships with colleagues up, across, and down can be the bottom-line determinant of our survival. We leave them not the company. In discussions at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, the economic recovery was described by the acronym LUV as the various shapes of the look of the recovery.
In certain developed countries such as Ireland, Greece and Spain it is an L, while the USA and other EU countries is a U, and the developing nations such as China and India have a V recovery. The same analogy can be made for the recovery of the job market worldwide and specifically in the USA. It is situational depending on the local and regional industries as well as the impact of the housing market on the local economy. Without going into lengthy examples to prove the point as that can be found on government websites. Suffice to say the difference between 11% unemployment in the San Francisco Bay Area vs 7% in Salt Lake City. I can predict which labor market has the greater stability and potential for growth. Regardless of the technology growth engine in the SF Bay, that alone simply cannot create enough jobs to cover the numbers needed for full employment. The world job market echoes the same statistics. Opportunities abound in China, India, Brazil compared to the struggling EU and Eastern Europe. What is the answer? This may sound simplistic and contrived but I suggest anymore with the where with all to move. Yes, just pick up stakes and move on to new opportunities, to a cheaper standard of living, or both. Certainly that is more difficult for older workers. However, since our next generation of professionals is at the greatest risk of lack of choices and growth, they can take advantage of their ability to be mobile. I have found newer immigrants and minorities have fewer embedded ties and roots to places compared to the decendents of earlier settling populations in the USA. Regardless, opportunities will go to those who are mobile, adaptable and Christopher Penn had a great job working for an online academic services website until he got laid off. He also did a lot of blogging, tweeting, and online networking. He put the word out to all his avenues of communication and landed a new position in less than 3 months.
The average search is taking anywhere from 3 to 6 months depending on level and position. Christopher did well and I attribute that to his use of social media and social networking. After finding a new position, he let everyone in his network know where he landed. But more than that, he offered help to others in the same boat. He has continued to make good on that offer in his blog http://is.gd/eO1ue and newsletter. He offers to forward to his network of 5000+ connections on linkedin.com any job postings. He also will post jobs on his Marketing Over Coffee forum, http://is.gd/eO2fA . I call that paying it forward. All the people he helps now will be of even greater help to him at a later date. It appears that the economy will get worse before it gets better as a double-dip recession is now on the table. The numbers don’t look good nor do the projections.
“Data for the United States has been decidedly weak over the past couple of months, with private-sector job growth lagging expectations and the unemployment rate stuck at 9.5 percent. That has fed concerns the economy could be at risk of a renewed recession or face a debilitating bout of deflation as the bleak jobs market pressures incomes and prices,” according to a Reuters articles posted in Yahoo news today (http://is.gd/ef3fD ). This is more than a cyclical downturn. Yes, the economy crashed but as companies rebound and recover their focus is on making money wherever they can, not to bring jobs back to America. Then can just as easily sell Coke and Pepsi to India as Indiana, why would they be worried if consumers are employed in the United States? Further, manufacturing costs are lower off-shore. The dilemma we face today is scarce employment opportunities. The adjustment is going to continue to be painful as competition increases for each position, expectations for a better future decrease, and basic survival demands continue. We all need to respond to change with flexibility and a positive view. But adjusting our perspective in a consumer-driven economy to appreciate a simpler life is the greatest challenge. |
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