Poor Puffer
July 10, 2013
Columnist Scott Kirsner has found the perfect symbol for the disruptive cultural shifts that take place when a large company acquires a smaller one; Boston.com posts, “Firing Nemo: Endeca, Oracle, and the Cultural Aftershocks of an Acquisition.” Much like a new homeowner who razes a lovingly-tended, decades-old flower bed to make room for a gravel driveway, new corporate overlords can impose heart-aching changes that end up devaluing the property they just bought.
The symbol that embodies this unfortunate tendency is one lovely fish named Puffer, who for a decade enjoyed the plum position of Endeca mascot. However, because Oracle maintains a no-pets provision for all of its properties, Puffer was forced into retirement. I find it amazing that large organizations, even ones run by smart people, tend to produce bureaucracies unable to distinguish between a puffer fish and a Great Dane. But I digress; the issue here is changing corporate culture, not that red tape smothers common sense. (Right?)
Kirsner writes:
“All the employees loved Puffer. They put her picture on posters that promoted companywide parties. And when she puffed up — which was not very often — people took pictures and e-mailed them to their co-workers. The employees who helped take care of Puffer, feeding her krill and algae, loved her even more. She would follow them whenever they walked past her tank, sometimes bonking into the glass.
“But one day in 2011, one of the richest men in the world decided to buy Endeca. . . . And that’s when things changed for Puffer and her friends.
“This is the story of Puffer, but it’s also the story of those thousand tiny changes that big companies often make when they acquire smaller ones. And about how those changes often lead to the loss of the very same talent the big company hoped to bring on as part of the deal.”
How big a problem is this loss of talent through such tone-deafness? Well, Kirsner for one says he knows far more folks who have left Endeca than stayed since the Oracle deal. That is just one example, but I can think of one or two others. Is this sort of shake-up necessary, or could more common sense and sensitivity be applied? It seems like a low-cost way to maximize the ROI on corporate acquisitions. (The good karma is an added benefit.)
Cynthia Murrell, July 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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