Find Your Place In Corporate Change
As a parent watches his child grow up before his eyes, he has a tendency to welcome the development but fear the change. After all, what would happen, for example, if the child grew up quickly and got roughed up in the process? Or worse, what if the child were to grow up too fast and no longer need his parents at all?
However common this latter fear may be, most parents know that, no matter what, they will never be replaced in their children's eyes — even if they might be needed less.
Like human beings, companies are organisms that change naturally. Obviously, the nature of corporate change depends on their size and their life stage. By size, I mean whether a company is small or large. By life stage, I mean the maturation or growth stage they are at.
the pros and cons of corporate changeWhereby large companies might only change by morphing into different shapes and forms (via reorganizations, restructurings or spinoffs), small companies tend to grow no matter how much some of the stakeholders try to prevent it. In these situations, founders usually fear the loss of control, even as they obviously welcome the growth, be it in terms of financial or operational metrics. Small company employees, however, might suddenly find themselves either marginalized or drowned in the process.
Ideally, employees in these circumstances can find opportunities to raise their value in the company. But it does take a savvy individual to recognize an opportunity in this context and find out how they can seize it without stepping on someone else's toes (especially when they might be stepping on the toes of a company's more senior employee).
As employees, we typically make an overt decision to either work in a small or a large enterprise. Some people prefer the family-like feel of small companies; others like the stability of large ones — even though recent implosions at behemoths Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen would suggest otherwise.
These three cases were largely exceptions to the rule. Nonetheless, there is no real guarantee that working in a large company translates into more job security or more job stability. After all, for the past few decades, employers and employees have stabbed one another in the back in a downward spiral that would make the mantra "an eye for an eye" seem like an understatement. As companies have laid off massive numbers of employees in downtimes, loyalty has waned. And in economic upturns, employees mimic playing on the monkey bars by always reaching for the next better gig.
How do you stay satisfied with a changing job?