We all experience moments where we ask ourselves, “They did WHAT?! Are you kidding me”? As I read Boston Globe’s The Region’s Tech Sector, In A Fishbowl by Scott Kirsner, I can’t help but further comment.
Change Happens. It can be difficult to accept and embrace it. It can even be more challenging to decide what changes need to occur and implement in a professional environment.
Some change decisions are more strategic than others. A large software company (click on original article link to learn what company) acquired a Massachusetts software company, Endeca. After several integration meetings, the mother ship decided that Endeca needed to find it’s beloved puffer fish/mascot, Puffer a new home. Puffer violated the mother ship’s company policy of no pets in the office. That definitely sounds like a strategic focus area and one that must be changed immediately (this sentence is oozing in sarcasm).
Puffer was loved-she was a “cult legend”. She would show up at company parties with a sombrero, with a cold Corona in hand. OK-she was on a poster-but she was there! Think about it-she was a symbol of the company’s culture-fun and playful. Endeca employees always included Puffer.
Ever code software? It’s not exactly a wild and crazy responsibility. It is difficult and tedious. All things considered, if Endeca liked their fish-use your sympathy gene-or even a brain cell and make the right decision. It’s similar to what Jennifer Anniston said about Brad Pitt after they separated, “…he is missing a sensitivity chip”.
Pick your battles. Relocating a company fish that represented their culture should not be one of them. Aren’t there more strategic, revenue generating topics you should have focused on? You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that 2/3 of Endeca’s software engineers have moved on from the new company. They were the “crown jewel” of Endeca pre acquisition. Since Endeca, this large software company has changed its policy about animals in the office. That’s great-now. However for the former employees who have moved onto new companies, or as poor Puffer looks down from heaven-its a dime short and a day late.
Demanding Puffer be relocated was not the best judgment unless you want to be a culture killer. Sorry-this bad decision won’t make you look like Brad Pitt but you are missing the same gene as him.
Stephanie Mello, VP, @Stepheeg
Sources
Today, NBC, Aniston says Pitt missing ‘sensitivity chip’, http://www.today.com/id/8797298/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/aniston-says-pitt-missing-sensitivity-chip/#.Ui9z1NfD83E
Boston Globe, The Region’s Tech Sector, In a Fishbowl, http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/06/08/where-have-all-pufferfish-gone-tech-story/kSfyCvJyCnXJY6ZkNafnuM/story.html
