Mergers and acquisitions often bring in new leaders who change governance and redefine management culture. Faced with these changes, staff may see them as an opportunity or a disruption. Some may even question their place in the organisation. How do you identify your adaptation strategy and your potential breaking point?
🫢 Faced with expected upheavals or uncertainty about the future some may be wrestling with all sorts of questions, even if their jobs are not directly threatened.
👉 Some of these questions are technical or organisational and relate to the content of the job, the function, the working environment, the hierarchical links, etc.
👉 Others relate to the purpose, the project, the leadership style and the new spirit instilled in the company. The latter include:
Can I / How can I maintain a good level of motivation and desire?
Can I / How can I be in phase with the new company project as it is taking shape? Can I / How can I feel in tune with the values it embodies?
Can I / How can I trust the new leadership?
Can I / How can I find my place in the new organisation?
Will I be able to / How can I navigate through turbulent times?
🔄 The phrases ‘can I’ or ‘how can I’ obey very different mental approaches.
⚡ ‘Can I’ marks the potential breaking point. The question could then be summarized as ‘Do I believe in my future with the company? If the answer is no, I would probably consider leaving my job and moving on to what I consider to be a better place.
🏄 ‘How’ is part of a process of adaptation and adjustment. It is therefore interesting to examine the conditions necessary for adaptation.
What is the minimum foundation in terms of vision, project and values that I need in order to feel part of the company?
What do I need in order to trust a new leader whose vision, ideas or leadership style stand in stark contrast to the previous one?
What level of non-trust can I accept?
👁️ In response to these questions, we make choices that can have a major impact on our future. But are we really aware of how we make our choices? What is specific to the situation and what might be a matter of personal automatism?
So, in the past, when thresholds of acceptance were crossed, what was your spontaneous strategy? Did you leave, ‘quietly quit’, adapt, find opportunities in the situation, learn and develop, interact and transform? What were the results and consequences for you and your environment? What did you learn?
😂 Just for fun, here is a link to a parody video. The point here is not to start a political debate, but raise the question of facing reality or escaping it, and the consequences of one’s choices in this area.
⛵ Any complex decision-making process must take into account both objective and subjective factors. Trust and potential trust in key stakeholders such as new leaders are often part of the decision landscape.
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