Episode 505: Merger Mayhem: When Two Teams Collide

Voice Over: You’re about to listen to an episode of What the Hell Just Happened. Join Paul Edwards and his guests as they discuss interesting HR topics and solve some of our listeners’ submitted questions.

Paul: And occasionally I’ll go off HR topic and talk about whatever I want to talk about. Think barbecue. Space exploration. Technology. Money. Managing. Business. Things that interest all of us.

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Paul: For anybody who’s listening as we start the show today, welcome to What The Hell Just Happened. I’ll tell you what the hell just happened. I used to be a chef in another life, Harley. You’ve heard the story. By the way, Harley, introduce yourself.

Harley: Hi. I’m Harley and I’m the SC Administrative Manager at CEDR Solutions.

Paul: And what are we going to talk about today, Harley?

Harley: We’re gonna talk about company culture.

Paul: Company culture?

Harley: When you are merging with another practice.

Paul: Okay. All right. We’ll get to that in a minute. I got other things.

Harley: Barbecue’s more important than mergers.

Paul: So, I’m from eastern North Carolina, where we make the best barbecue on the face of the earth. You Texans, listen, right now.

Harley: [laughing] You know you’re starting a war.

Paul: You’ve got brisket figured out, but you couldn’t cook a piece of pork to save your life. Sorry about that.

Harley: Fighting words.

Paul: But it’s the truth.

Harley: As someone without skin in the game at all?

Paul: Yeah.

Harley: My background is Arizona and Louisiana.

Paul: Oh, I’m so sorry.

Harley: Hey, Louisiana’s got some good food.

Paul: They do have some good food.

Harley: I’m a little offended, actually. When you acted like I wouldn’t know what a hushpuppy was?

Paul: Well, you are one of the few people in Tucson, Arizona, who understands what a hush puppy was.

Harley: Okay fair enough. Mmm hush puppies.

Paul: Yes! I know! They’re gonna be so good. So, anyway, I’m catering Wednesday for the team here. We’re having a barbecue and I spent yesterday (about 12 hours) and by the way, it’s 110 degrees here in Tucson right now, which is about the temperature of a commercial kitchen.

Harley: Have you seen King of the Hill?

Paul: I have.

Harley: Every time it hits these temperatures here, I just think about Bobby Jr. screaming about why it’s the temperature of the surface of the sun.

[laughing]

Paul: It is supposed to be 110 almost every day this week.

Harley: [heavy sigh] It is miserable outside.

Paul: So I just want you to know, I was out there in that heat, in that sun. You know, what we don’t have in commercial kitchens? Sun!

Harley: [laughing]

Paul: There’s no sunlight on your head. That has nothing to do with practices merging. But I cooked you guys a great brisket and some really good pork shoulder.

Harley: I mean, I think I have been just terrorizing you since I got hired over you proving you earned those trophies in your office.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. More about the trophy…No. I’m just kidding.

Harley: Those number one barbecue competition.

Paul: Okay, so, culture is a big…I love this conversation. But let’s give it some context: two practices merge.

Harley: Right.

Paul: So two different cultures merge. This also shows up as one practice purchases another practice and we continue to have multiple practices. So I think this conversation applies to everybody. I’ve been at this for 17 years. One of the first things that I learned when I was working and learning how to do associate agreements and that sort of stuff and coach around it, was that a lot of the people I was working with either were purchasing another practice or they were growing and they knew something about what they were doing, they needed to put associates in place. That was a whole nother level of complication that you have to address with associates. Whether you’re merging or whether or not you’re opening up additional practices or maybe purchasing other practices, I want to share this with everybody. We’ve already gone back in the Wayback Machine on the chefing, but starting in my thirties, I established – I’ve talked about before in the show – I established a live music venue, small venue, held 99 people that held 250 people. I also managed a bunch of touring bands and I did that for about 12 years. In the 10th or 11th year I purchased a second nightclub across the street from my nightclub, of which I was really good friends with and had booked shows in that bigger, larger concert venue. And it was the biggest culture mistake I ever made. It was such a big mistake that it just took the wind out of my sails. I realized after I’d done that and I grew from 40 employees to 65, that the culture thing was something that I couldn’t overcome.

Harley: I, too, have a personal story about this.

Paul: Okay.

Harley: Actually, from an employee perspective.

Paul: Okay. So what was your role?

Harley: I was a treatment coordinator.

Paul: Okay. So you’re in the ranks, got a little bit of power, but not a lot of power.

Harley: Not a lot.

Paul: You’re just doing your job and what happens?

Harley: So actually, what happened is, before I got hired, the new practice that I was hired under, acquired the location and another location that I was working at. So what had already occurred before I got hired was this kind of “us versus them” mentality that was occurring between the two practices.

Paul: That’s what happened at mine!

Harley: I had the unique position of being brought into the location that used to be its own practice and my new employer considered me a “them.”

Paul: The employer?

Harley: Yes.

Paul: They?

Harley: Yes!

Paul: Those people over there?

Harley: Considered me a “them,” and then my coworkers considered me –

Paul: A “them.”

Harley: The “other them.” An “us,” I guess, because I wasn’t one of the originals. So it puts you in a really unique position.

Paul: So one thing I want to point out here to anybody who’s listening, who’s thinking about growing or maybe you’re growing, you’re having some growing pains right now: You got to where you are, your team got to where you are by one hard step at a time. You’re like, you just made, two, three steps forward, two back, three steps back, and you just go and go and everybody knows each other and most of the time you have created your culture. Your mission, your vision, your values are kind of organic.

Harley: Well and then you have so much buy in from your team.

Paul: Yeah, because they’ve been growing with you and I’m not saying, “Everything’s perfect.” Everything is never perfect, but when you go to integrate other people or you have multiple locations, you have to really consider that that thing, that organic thing that you’ve created, will fall apart if it doesn’t become something that’s planted on the wall that you cheerlead to, that you preach that everybody learns to adhere to. So what are your values?

Harley: Right? What are your values? How can you get the people who are being brought in and introduced to these values for the first time to believe in them as fervently as the rest of your team does? Without making them feel like everything they believed in before was evil or wrong?

Paul: Yeah, absolutely not. So putting ten things on the wall that espouse our values allows everybody to kind of focus on that.

Harley: Right.

Paul: Right? We can discuss it. If there’s a problem in the practice, we can actually bring one of the values up. We have a value here at CEDR. It’s part of our values. We shortened it: We meet our members where they are. What that means in a larger conversation is, is that some people who call in have no experience in HR and are going to ask questions that someone who has five, ten and 15 years of experience aren’t going to ask. We can’t judge them. So part of our value, and we give this as an example, is as an advisor and an expert here, you do not get to walk out in the hallway and start making fun of or speaking derogatory about a question which seemingly is kind of a stupid question. I’ll admit it. Sometimes we get some crazy questions, but you don’t get to frame it as stupid. You don’t get to frame it as anything. That’s because we meet them where they are. It also works in one other way, and then I’ll get back to the example you gave. That statement is about respect for where a person is. I don’t talk to the person with 15 years of experience and start mansplaining to them what at-will employment means. That’s not where we start with that person. So there’s a lot in that little one value, but now if we have a problem, we can speak to the problem, not the person. We can attack the problem and we can say, “Look, we’re kind of deconstructing everything that’s just happened with this patient who got very upset, who gave us this terrible review. I think we might have kind of deserved it. Where do we not adhere to our values and get ourselves in trouble in this situation? And how could we talk about systematizing something and realizing what we did and not do it again?”

Harley: I mean, I think that’s so, so great for you to say, Paul, because there’s definitely employees out there who are the bad apples. We know that and they cause problems, but if you take the chance to be self-reflective and say, “How could I have handled this differently? Maybe I could have created a different outcome with that employee.”

Paul: Yeah, a bigger picture.

Harley: Yes!

Paul: You can create a bigger picture with that employee and it can begin to break down the “us versus them” because there’s almost always an “us” in the beginning.

Harley: Yeah, but how can the “us” be inviting and open and willing to have a discourse? I think that really changes it. Also, and you can disagree with this Paul, but I think that if you approach the relationship with the new employees coming over from the recently acquired practice, as a new hire relationship? It’s going to be a much smoother transition.

Paul: So I want to qualify what you said, because I agree with it, but I got one little twinge there. They’re not new at their job. They’re new at being part of your organization, and so I think what you meant, and you correct me if I’m wrong, you meant onboard them into your mission, your vision, your culture, and realize you have a lot of work to do with these folks. You don’t just walk in one day and say, “I own you now.”

Harley: Right.

Paul: “We’re going to run these two practices and off you go.” There’s a lot more work.

Harley: How would you treat a hygienist with 15 years of experience that you’re hiring for the first time?

Paul: Very good. Very good point.

Harley: You know?

Paul: Yeah.

Harley: Treat them the same way. Maybe, if they understand that, that’s how the relationship is going to be, that they are new with you and you’re new with them and they understand that this isn’t going to be just a “pick up where we left off” kind of a relationship? I think they’ll follow that lead.

Paul: You know the question that I didn’t ask of the team of 25, who I bought at the other venue? Who knew me very, very well? Who were happy that I purchased the business? So I just want everybody to know I had everything going for me and I blew it. I didn’t say, “Hey, guys, how’s it been going here and what would you like for me to change?”

Harley: Interesting.

Paul: “I need your ideas and your suggestions. And what do you need from me in order to make this work?” Because I failed to ask those questions and get their feedback, I missed the first opportunity to engage with them. I just thought that my vibrant, wonderful personality –

Harley: Of which you have a very big, vibrant personality.

Paul: I thought it would carry me, and it carried me about 50 feet between these two venues back and forth as I tried to stop them from warring with one another.

Harley: Well, and a factor to this, which we haven’t touched on yet, is what is the leadership structure going to look like? Are you putting your own managers in place? Are you bringing on managers from the previous practice? Is the manager bought into the new culture?

Paul: Does the manager even know that there’s a culture?

Harley: Correct. Yeah, because I mean, oftentimes they’re going to be the ones who are giving your information to the employees on your behalf. So if they feel it’s an “us versus them,” they’re just going to perpetuate that.

Paul: Okay, Harley. So I want to leave everybody with this thought: If you’re going to merge or purchase another practice or part of your vision is to purchase more practices, you need to spend some time (you and your leadership team) learning about strategic business planning and cultural planning.

Harley: Yes.

Paul: I’m talking like you need to hire someone. You need to learn about it. You need to read about it. You need to go away for three days. You need to lay everything, organizational charts. You’ve got to blend all of your plans into some kind of cogent message, which you can then use to stay on point and work with everybody.

Harley: Yeah, get the whole leadership team on board.

Paul: How did it go for you in the end? As a parting thought from you, how did it go? Did they do any of this stuff?

Harley: It broke the team apart, in my opinion. I don’t think that they’ve retained anyone from the original team.

Paul: Yeah.

Harley: Or any of the early hires.

Paul: So hard lessons learned and some turnover that maybe –

Harley: And they’re rebuilding.

Paul: Yeah, and they’re rebuilding and they’ll be fine.

Harley: They will be.

Paul: Look everybody, if you go through this, you go through this. I went through it and I learned a lot, but what we’re trying to do is tell you you might not have to go through as much turnover. It’s going to be a pain in your ass no matter what. That’s an HR term by the way, the pain in your –

Harley: [laughing] Pain in your ass.

Paul: Yeah, pain in your ass. It’s going to be a pain no matter what. This planning can be exhausting, but it can also be a lot of fun. When you look back five years and you’re where you need to be five years later, I attribute all of our successful growth over at CEDR to me getting this lesson, me and my business partner getting this lesson, and then me and my leadership team getting this lesson, and we’ve used it to drive us and we used it to drive ourselves right through the pandemic. We’ve used it in so many different ways in order to be able to maintain what I think is one of the highest standards in giving service and good answers. For anybody listening, you can do that, too.

Harley: Yeah, totally.

Paul: All right. If you’re over on CEDR’s website, we publish a lot of stuff about culture so you can search around in it and see if you can find something that’ll get you the juices flowing.

Harley: 100%.

Paul: Okay. Thanks, Harley.

Harley: Thanks, Paul.

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