This week I had an uncomfortable exchange with an audience member, twenty years my senior, who challenged my decision to keep the sale of my business secret from my employees: ”Why didn’t you just tell your employees?” he asked in what I perceived as a condescending tone.
In retrospect, it was a fair question but he had hit a sore spot and I lashed back: “I’ve never quite understood why some business owners think of themselves as the patriarch of their business and that they somehow have to provide for their employees like some overbearing 1950′s father figure.”
The room went quiet as we stared each other down. For the rest of the talk I felt like I was walking on egg shells.
I got on the plane that night and things went from bad to worse as I read about how Tony Hsieh built Zappos into a billion dollar business by focusing on creating a happy culture for his employees.
I have never managed to get culture right and I read stories about warm and fuzzy working environments with equal measures of jealousy and skepticism.
In the early years of running my marketing agency, I tried to be a new age manager by sharing financial results with my employees, paying for after work socials, inviting people to bring their dogs to work and involving employees in decision making. It was all text book happy culture stuff. None of it worked. My employees listened politely and participated hesitantly in after work junkets but I never got the sense my attempts to offer a friendly work environment made a difference.
Eventually I stopped trying. I separated my social life from my company. I built a corporate culture that would, at best, be described as average. It’s a failure that still smarts. So as you read the articles I wrote this week about selling a business below, please keep in mind that I’m the last guy on the planet who should give advice on how to build a positive business culture. And if you’ve figured out the culture thing while simultaneously building a sellable business, please let me know what I did wrong.
Leave the Business to the Kids? Maybe Not
~ published The Wall Street Journal June 9, 2010
When Brian France took over as the CEO of Nascar, he completed a feat that may be even more difficult than winning the Daytona 500: he successfully stewarded his granddaddy’s business into the third generation of family ownership.
According to McKinsey & Co., less than one in three family businesses survive to their third generation of family ownership. »more
3 questions a buyer will ask before acquiring your company
~ published Entrepreneur.com June 2, 2010
Recently Google acquired DocVerse for $25 million. DocVerse allows a group of users to share and edit Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) documents in real time without having to e-mail them back and forth. Google plans to integrate the DocVerse technology into its Google Docs application, accelerating its adoption.
But why did Google buy DocVerse instead of just creating its own technology to imitate what DocVerse had built? »more
Will unfaithful employees drown in your moat?
~ published The Globe and Mail June 1, 2010
I have a friend who recently made partner at a big law firm. He fits the mould of a successful lawyer: smart, hard-working and willing to wine-and-dine clients into the wee hours to win business.
He joined his firm after law school and worked 100-hour weeks for the first seven years. His schedule was hard on his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While his personal relationships suffered, his career thrived as his partners continually recognized his dedication to the firm and alluded to his candidacy for partnership. »more
Safe, non-addictive and mood altering
Whenever I get frustrated by life’s little inconveniences, I log on to kiva.org and make a couple of small loans to a fellow entrepreneur in the developing world. I’ve set up a “lending team” of Built To Sell readers and I’d like to invite you to enjoy the all-natural buzz of helping a fellow entrepreneur in a tight spot. Join my team.
