Page 117 - Fearless Leadership

104 FEARLESS LEADERSHIP

What Happened. Conspiracies formed quickly against the acquir-
ing company, and rumors began to spread: “They are unfair,” “They
don’t care about people,” and “They are going to fire most of us and
dismantle our company.” Applying the victim triangle: leaders in the
smaller company became the victim; their families, friends, and
coworkers became their co-conspirators; the leaders in the acquiring
company became the bad guys or persecutors. The tension was high
among senior leaders in the two companies, and meetings were
unproductive.

Breaking Up the Victim Triangle. We worked with the CEOs of
both companies to resolve this situation and ensure a successful
merger. Because both CEOs were fearless leaders, we were able to
bring both senior leadership groups together for a session and face
the issues head on.
When we started the session, the group of 35 leaders was resigned,
skeptical, and discouraged. Leaders from the acquiring company
were exasperated with the resistance they were experiencing, and
they were concerned that the merger was going to be a long and dif-
ficult process costing millions of dollars. Leaders from the smaller
company felt as if their company was being swallowed by a big fish
and they had lost complete control of its future.
The CEO of the acquiring company opened the session with the
following: “The statistics for successful mergers are not on our side, with
over 50 percent ending in complete disaster. If we don’t resolve the
issues between us, this could happen to us. I believe it is the ‘people’
part that makes the critical difference in the successful integration of
our companies. We have exceptional talent in this room, and by the
end of this session, I want us to be one company and one team.
Working in partnership is the only way we will succeed, and that begins
with an honest dialogue about our concerns and fears.”
What the two groups had to face was how they had applied the
victim triangle to each other and had made each other the persecu-
tor. Each group was trapped in victim mentality, which came as a
surprise to both groups. Once they recognized this, they were able
to see how they had created barriers to cooperating and collaborat-