Gene Marks on Merging Company Cultures

 

 

Say you buy another company and you’re bringing in other people with another culture and they’re coming into your company. You know, whenever there’s a new leadership in town there is normally changes. People that have been working for another place are used to the way it is. Some people are going to adapt to that change, the whole who moved my cheese thing, and some people are not going to adapt to that change. So, as a business owner and as a manager, you’ve got to be strong enough to make changes in people if they’re not going to change to your company. What I mean, making changes to people, you’ve gotta be strong enough to get rid of people if you feel like they’re not coming along, coming along the line, ‘cause not everybody is going to adapt. I remember when I was working at a – when I left this big accounting firm that I was working at, actually when I was a controller at a company for about two years – ;horrible two years – and I took over from a guy that was like beloved by the accounting staff. There were like six accounting staff and they like thought he walked on water. Real nice guy. And they, they were really upset that he left and I was not beloved by them. I’m just different and I just – whatever. Within a year, four out of those six people had left, and out of those four out of the six people one of them left on their own and three of them were let go and the people that I replaced that came in, they were team players for me because I hired them. So they didn’t know anything about the history before, about the culture before. All they knew about was me and what I wanted to do and the department and what I wanted, so, and that worked out good. So, as a business owner, you bring on people, you bring in a whole new set of people from a company you acquire. They either get it or they don’t and if they don’t get it, you know, hard decisions have to be made because you have to have a team working for you that does get it.