Our company, with revenue in the $30-$40 million range, was purchased by DuPont in 2008. We soon learned some lessons on how a major conglomerate operates; certainly much different than a smaller privately owned company. There were two overriding principles:
- Pay exorbitant amounts of money to outside consultants to make decisions we should make internally.
- Do whatever it takes to make short-term revenue goals regardless of long-term effect; what they call the “we’ll cross that bridge…” plan.
Examples:
- They paid $500,000 to a consultant to come up with a new name we scrapped in 6 months
- The Einstein they put in to run us sold our very attractive URL for a single large payout that made our numbers and got him a bonus but, in the long-run, cost us millions of dollars in lost revenue. He soon retired and left the mess for the next person.
I always…well most of the time…did my best and worked hard to make my goals. When the inevitable redundancies began, DuPont was very generous, giving long-term employees what amounted to a year’s salary and benefits. I loved our company, but the spirit that built us was gone and I was not without other opportunities. I would not have been crushed if I was offered one of those severance packages. In my phony benevolence I even volunteered to save a co-worker by telling them I would sadly accept a pink slip accompanied by a big payout. But, alas, it was not to be. My boss told me I was a needed thought-partner and not to be concerned; something I would have loved to hear years before when I had kids at home and was living paycheck to paycheck, but not so much now.
So, the lesson to be learned? Wives, husbands, family, partners, coworkers: When you see someone slacking off, showing no initiative and generally doing just okay, but not enough to be invaluable to the group; enough to keep their job but also be first to go when the cuts come, have patience with them. They might be executing a well thought-out business plan to secure their future.
All this experience sitting at home, an untapped resource. I am available to help. If you have $500,000 and need a technology consultant with encyclopedic knowledge of today’s business landscape, feel free to contact me. I’m sure you still have my pager number or send me a note on My Space.