A year into a merger

We're a year in - a bit over actually - of the merger between Vera Whole Health and Castlight Health which created apree health.

If I could go back in time 10 months what would I do differently?

First off, why 10 months? Why not go back to the day the merger was announced as the reset point? Because it's too chaotic when the merger first hits. You don't really know what things mean. You don't really know if it is a merger or an acquisition or some other word silicon valley and new york people know. If one partner is going to be louder than the others, have greater influence in the future of the new company. You don't really know if your company is going to still be around or if it is going to be swallowed up. 10 months seems like a good number because at that point in history the dust has settled a little bit and you have a vague idea of what the future might look like and even maybe a name if you are lucky.

1) I'd swallow my fear and bridge build earlier

I wanted to say swallow my pride but it wasn't pride. It was fear that kept me from building more bridges earlier. Fear of letting important work not get completed by deadlines I selfishly wanted to hit. Fear of reaching out to colleague strangers to ask for help in understanding the new side of the business and what their departments look like and what kind of work they do. Fear of being seen as someone who is networking to build a power base in the new company. I've probably read the book "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi three or four times but I still struggle with understanding deep down people want to help each other and networking is not evil. Fear of coming across as ignorant of something basic.

The thing thing with fear though is it's always going to be there unless we truly are a lunatic. Think it was Aristotle who said in Nicomachean Ethics that courage is not the absence of fear, it's doing what is right in spite of the fear.

A year in, I genuinely think that the majority of folks in two like sized companies merging together have all sort of internal feelings going on during the merger and there is a lot of grace for those who reach out to get to know the new team members. The reach out email, slack message, team message, phone call or whatever will 80% of the time be received well and you really don't know which of those 20% you connect with will give you the deepest understanding of the other teammates from the company you merged with so you need to cast the net wide.

Why do bridges matter so much? Because without them you end up having the old cultures, cliques, and teams stay isolated. Leadership might have a lot of joint meetings and feel on the same page in terms of what the new company is about, what the critical few objectives are, what the new product offering might look like, but if the middle management and those who execute the day to day workflows and operations of the company stay siloed in their own worlds - true company culture becomes what you don't want: disjointed, isolated, distrustful, second-guessing, disappointed, etc. Bridges are the pathways which lead to the next thing I'd do differently

2) I'd prioritize building trust, empathetic listening and genuine curiosity

And not just because it gets things done or makes for a more productive outcome. I'd do it because it feels really good. When you build genuine relationships and actually ask for feedback/insight and listen it refills the tank, doesn't wear you out, actually makes you feel good about how the day went. Don't get me wrong. I love delivering on project timelines and getting those critical boulders identified and moved, but if that is our number 1 priority and most of our efforts during that first year of integration are internal team / project focused we're missing the boat. The way for a company to thrive is for it's people to thrive - to be operating from a place of core strength - life blood - where they feel deeply connected to each other and feel really proud of what they are co-creating. The only way for us to get to that feeling of co-creating is to actually be doing it. The funny thing is (at least from my experience) the co-creating doesn't always have to be huge big hairy audacious stuff - it can be as simple as seeking feedback on a piece of comms about to go out or a new design pattern you want to run by a new engineering lead.

So let's get specific, what does empathetic listening look like - paint the picture. It looks like asking for feedback on a simple one page form describing some new monitoring functionality you are about to rollout so that your colleagues know what to expect when they start to have some of their workflows potentially impacted. It looks like not just sending them a slack or an email asking for their thoughts - fishing for a gold star - but actually taking in their suggestions and rewriting the thing again, and again, and again - so that they know you really are trying hard to consider their department's needs, time, work impact, technical acumen across the scale. It really doesn't take that long to get the feedback (applying it takes some though). The delayed, refined comms are significantly stronger and equally as important - the relational fibers built with your teammates are gold.

3) Eat the frog - don't wait to integrate

Integrations are hard. They are messy. They disrupt work temporarily. They cause a ton of support tickets. But oh my gosh they are so wonderful. To finally be on a common platform of tools. To finally have a united single sign on where the entire company can access critical documents and easily collaborate in ways that are not a floor routine from the summer olympics. To be able to send a company wide email and actually have it get to people reliably. To be able to reallocate team members to new teams without having multiple computers or having to switch out a tech stack. Priceless.

Eat the frog. Don't look at it too long. Don't wait for perfect planning. Engage, engage, engage but set clear dates to move things. Also, on this one, I don't put too much stock in contractors mapping it out for you. Time would be better spent taking all the time with the contractors to internally do a similar exercise but actually come to consensus and decision points in that time period rather than a long doc that then has to be rehashed to get the consensus and buy in.

In Closing

I cannot express how thankful I am for the members of apree health who are building the company with me. I am surrounded daily by smart, thoughtful, good-hearted, clydesdale work ethic humans who make my world better. Thanks for your patience with me as our security teams engage the company to continue to build out deeper security maturity and all the ways that affects workflows and long lived processes. Your partnership in this endeavor and ongoing work to improve health at our care centers and build applications and develop healthcare intelligence to revolutionize how we deliver healthcare inspire me.

Thanks for letting me build bridges and reach out - even when sometimes it's months later than it should have been.