Smart Lemming Diary: Post Acquisition and Processing a Loss during Management Transition

unknown-the-gate-uncertainty When executives go about their personal lives, what goes through their mind? Are they normal people, struggling to get by like everyone else?

What happens when an executive is a VP in someone else’s startup and the co-founder in their own startup that just got acquired? What issues do they face? As a direct report what can you do help your boss through these times?

Below is my journal entry from a key time when I was a VP of Sale Operations and Marketing, after my own company Erosion Media got acquired by MTV Networks and I had suffered a monumental personal loss.

June 28, 2006

Processing a Loss without Realizing It

I haven’t been processing my work life in my day job as a VP of Sales Operations and Marketing. I’ve also realized that I’ve lost a huge part of my life in the death of my grandmother. She died two days before the close of my startups acquisition by MTV. I talked to her about everything, nearly every day of my life since I was 20 years old. I trusted her with my life.

Over the past twenty-three years, we talked about my career and personal lives. She was my sounding board. She was my insight. She kept me grounded. She kept me focused. I realized that most of June has been spent grieving this loss. I’ve been so exhausted from work that I can barely decompress after work hours.

What about My Day Job with My CEO’s Company?

So what have I been doing with my work thoughts? Nothing. They haven’t gone anywhere. My thoughts haven’t been processed because of my loss. We’re going on vacation to Hawaii our closest friends soon, so I hope this gives me time to heal and regroup. What’s Been Going on at the Work Front?

Sales morale issues around changes in compensation
Contemplating how to have “moment of truth” talks with Sales
Taking over the Sales Operations from my CEO
Attempts at recruiting by poaching former colleagues from my former employer
The loss of a management team member
Working with a tighter, closer management team with Timothy, Stan, and Luke
Channel management overload in potential channel conflicts
An over worked CEO
Having a key channel partner gesture they want to talk acquisition again
A strong marketing team that I can count on through all the craziness

Anything else going on? Oh yes, there is that matter that my partner and I have to move to Manhattan this fall. It took a lot of reassurance to my CEO and his partner, who’s also a founder of their company that I wasn’t going to quit my job.

Why would I quit? I’m in my dream job, in my dream work environment. I run Marketing, Sales Operations, and Channel Management. I’m now have former coworkers call me for a job. We have an investor who believes in us. I have awesome peers like our Controller and CTO, combined with my CEO. We make a killer Executive team.

What have I been doing through all this?

Watching all six Star Wars movies in no particular order every weekend (I gravitate to Revenge of the Sith, Revenge of the Jedi, A New Hope, and Attack of the Clones).

Battling allergy season. And doing nothing after work hours. And not reading my business books or business magazines. I just haven’t been inspired to read. Do I still love my job? Absolutely, I guess I’m just grieving.

Food for Thought

As employees, it’s easy to forget that executives are people to. Your manager may be good at compartmentalizing their lives by keeping personal issues away from the office or maybe not.

What can you do? Get your job done, try not to solve your manager’s personal problems, and ask if they need help. They’ll ask if they need it, but especially appreciate your gesture. If your department has clear directions with 90-day action plans, then go on cruise control to get the work done.

As managers and leaders, it’s easy to neglect taking care of ourselves by only focusing on work. Take time out to grieve or take care of other major life transitions.

At the end of day, work is work, but real life is always with us. You don’t want to be emotionally stunted because you failed to address your personal problems, using work as your excuse. Because that’s all it is, an excuse.

The Smart Lemming Diary is a series that chronicles a journey of laid-off worker, who becomes a Vice President of Sales Operations & Marketing for a small entrepreneurial healthcare technology company. For previous entries in this series, click here. For the first diary entry, click here. For the highlighted Smart Lemming Diary entries, click here.

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