Intra-Office Male Genitalia Mesurement

Company A Purchases Company B

So this all starts innocently enough, one company seeing an opportunity to fill a gap in its own game plan purchases another perfectly running company, on the surface. The company doing the purchasing does their due diligence, reviews the books and game plan of the company they are planning on buying to make sure that everything seems like it is on the up and up. This whole process goes smoothly and everything seems to check out. The idea over all is awesome because it fills a hole that company A has in its offerings or business plans. The purchase moves forward.

The Excitement reaches a peek

Both companies are very happy that things are moving forward. The documents are being put together and everyone is having their lawyers look over and red line them. This is a time of satisfaction for both companies involved - a time of celebration. The final signed items are in and the purchase is complete. They are now a single company, this is when the measurements begin.

Making their mark

Company B (The purchased company) now starts to feel that they have to make an impression, show their metal and let everyone know that they have been very successful and that Company A purchased them for a reason. They try consistently to show how what they do in terms of development and process is the best thing since sliced bread. Company B goes out of their way to make sure that everyone knows that the way the do things has worked for them and they want Company A to know what their past experience and success is. This process does quite the opposite however and starts to make Company A staff think that Company B staff are pompous and think that they are better then everyone else. Both sides start to feel slighted and no one feels as if things are working smoothly.

My way or the high way

I once wrote about this very topic when I was talking about management but here, in this situation, it becomes a mechanism for how communications between both companies go. Company A thinks that they are right, Company B thinks that they are right and in the end - nothing productive gets done. If something productive gets done it is generally due to people pushing through their own personal preferences and differences and not because any of the communications or relations between the two companies have gotten any better. This posturing may eventually break down and one or more managers on either side step in and just lay down the law. This sometimes has a good effect and other times has the opposite feel. Without a solid direction of 'ownership' and decisions making however - this state of afairs gets set up to continue to repeat itself over and over and over with each project that is attempted that is inclusive of both sides.

Mine is bigger then yours

In the end the whole thing becomes some sort of bizarre mating ritual where both sides are whipping IT out and stating that theirs is the biggest in the room. In the end it breaks down into a childish US vs. THEM when it didn't need to.

What is gained? Nothing really... reality is that no one is going to get canned, ideas come and go but good people, when respected, stay. This makes for some of the best situations where really good things can happen if we just stand back and let them. Instead one or the other side feels as though they are being ignored or something else and bad blood builds and builds leading no where good. We spend more time measuring one another rather then just doing good work that we both know that we are capable of doing. Its a bit cliche but:

Can't we all just get along?

We need to stop measuring each others male genitalia and get down to doing the work that we both know we can, transparently, cohesively and without fear. Sharing all blemishes, pimples and high points in an attempt to pick the best of both sides and get the BEST possible answer for all rather then a semi good answer for one or the other.