Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
You don’t have look very far in the San Francisco Bay area to run into someone who has or has had an employment acquisition / buy-out arrangement.
Dentists, CPAs, other business owners of one stripe or another frequently have as part of the sale of their business a provision to work (“earn out period” – samples here) for some defined period of time with the people to whom they’ve sold their practice.… Read the rest
The adage “You have only one chance to make a first impression” has a sibling: “You have only one chance to make a decent good-bye.”
I thought of both when I saw Sun Microsystem CEO Jonathan Schwartz’ farewell note as he terminated his employment with the completion of Sun’s acquisition by Oracle [Disclosure: Jonathan and I are nodding acquaintances in our Dolores Park neighborhood of San Francisco].… Read the rest
In Pareto’s world , big things count a lot, but small things count as well. The trick as it were to is make sure you nail the big things very well, and make sure to do the smalls things well too.
It sounds easy to do but my experience is that it’s hard to execute. Many companies – and their functional departments – try to do it all at once – sort of the spaghetti testing method en masse– throwing it against the wall hoping that most of it sticks.… Read the rest
Nothing’s guaranteed except change, and in business (as well as more than just a few non-profits) that means a churn of possible mergers, consolidations, and acquisitions. Across the country biotech companies, financial services firms like asset managers, hedge funds, venture capital and private equity firms, and any number of companies in other sectors are all scrambling – some to stay alive, others to grow by acquisition.… Read the rest
In case you missed it, yesterday – April 15th – the US major league baseball teams honored Jackie Robinson , who in 1947 on that date became the first player of color to play in US major league baseball. All players yesterday wore the same number – Robinson’s #42 – as a way of honoring his memory and accomplishments. More on Robinson at this ESPN video clip here .… Read the rest