Monday, July 13, 2009

When Proactive is a Bad Word...

As we progress into our merger we are facing a 24 month integration period. I can't decide if that is a nice gradual pace for change....or just pure torture. It could be like ripping a band-aid off hair by hair...in the pubic area...

Let me preface the next bit (for those of you who are my colleagues...) by saying I still believe this is going to be a pretty cool end result and that 99.99% of the people I've met on the other side of the fence are pretty great.

Last week we met with the Integration leadership team. Where they used words like curious and proactive as if they were actually words like annoying or insane.

"We appreciate that your team has been so....PROACTIVE [read annoying]...in your activities so far. Now is the time for us to slow down as we make plans for our future."

"You certainly are a CURIOUS [read insane] bunch - the most CURIOUS [read really insane] group we've worked with so far."

When you are used to charting your own course, it's tough to give up the navigation...or to start having to call in to port every 5 minutes to get an ok. Things that used to be autonomous may likely require committee approvals now. While I freely admit, our company has needed some structure and discipline, bureacracy it already has...in spades.

So...the integration begins. And the first hairs are being yanked out today. Stay tuned.

2 comments:

Kate Hanley said...

Ah business speak! Perhaps Orwell was right. Good luck with the merger.

KiKi said...

LOL!!!!!!! LOL!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!