Caught in the midst of the Bozo Explosion

I could finally define where I am at the moment on the work-front - in the midst of the 'Bozo Explosion' (thanks to Guy Kawasaki) - which is defined as the inevitable downslide of a "mean, lean, fighting machine of a company" after it achieves success, typically after it goes public or ,in my case, after it's bought by a giant of a company.

Out of the top 10 signs of bozosity listed here,the ones I came across as a part of 2 acquisitions were :

1. The two most popular words in your company are “partner” and “strategic”.
In addition, “partner” has become a verb, and “strategic” is used to describe decisions and activities that don't make sense.

2. The aforementioned company mission statement is one page long.

3. An employee is paid to do nothing but write a blog ,for present,at least ;o)

4. There's a lot of talk about "processes" and that they need to be followed and
optimized.
After all is said and done, more is said than done.

Some of the hilarious signs are :

- Your parking lot's “biorhythm” looks like this:

• 8:00 am - 10:00 am--Japanese cars exceed German cars
• 10:00 am - 5:00 pm--German cars exceed Japanese cars
• 5:00 pm - 10:00 pm--Japanese cars exceed German cars
  
  

- Your CEO's admin has an admin.

- Your HR dept has more than one person

- Your HR department requires an MBA degree for any position;
it also requires five to ten years work experience in an industry that is only four years old.

After acquisition #2, the usual post-acquisition effects were seen - people quitting en masse, the general unrest amongst the remaining (who were worrying about being laid-off, asked to relocate), little or no communication followed by a lot of visitors coming in for quick 1-2 day visits and then disappearing, and again, little or no communication about the outcome of their visits.

Also,the information filtered down through the management to 'individual contributors' was not enough to give a clear picture of what was happening - little information was not communicated effectively - causing people to hit the panic button.

This spelled doom for my company(previously mean enough and decidedly lean) which could not afford to lose any resources but ended up losing very good people.

Although,the downslide hasn't begun on an individual basis (we're yet to feel the ripple-effect ),it feels like individual contributors are teetering on the brink.

And downslide for me would be having all the creativity and spontaniety stifled mainly because now we have to fit in a very, very big picture, where one is apt to get lost, have to deal with all the big-company bureaucracy - typical decision delays, added overhead of numerous channels of communication/approval, and consequently lose the fast-pace and dynamism.

I'm hoping we're not sucked into the big picture totally but can maintain some level of independence as a 'business unit' - with almost full control over the internal functioning.

And what we need to fight for are the principles of hiring smarter than self, under-staffing, hiring the 'right' person as opposed to hiring a person with the 'right' resume and of course, purging.

Purging seems ,by far, the most sacrilegious thing to do for the top management- in the Indian context - and most frustrating for employees ,who have to bear the brunt of the top management's supreme reluctance to 'exploy'.