The rock and the hard place - a modern microstory about business

The company I worked for, after beating off many attempts at hostile takeovers in the past, was shocked when several of our opposition, including our biggest rival, formed a Corporation

Then we were invited to join, too. It would cost, a LOT, but we could keep our own directors, our own policies, and would have the advantages of shared technology and advancements. No more hostile takeover bids, either! The staff would be free to advance their careers as recruitment would be centralized, as would a few other departments.

The offer was put to the shareholders, and a slim majority decided in favour.

Time passed. Some staff flourished exceedingly, some in minor ways, or were unaffected. Some grumbled, of course, especially the ones made redundant, and the ones who had always distrusted our rivals.

The main problems were that our rival remained the most powerful company in the Corporation, forming alliances to outvote us on issues: a lot of company policy was decided, and dictated, by the Corporation: and our company had little or no say re how our hefty membership fee was spent, but hey, that’s business. Same old.

The Corporation went from strength to strength, investing in a series of companies which my company didn’t always like. Not only did we have to take the staff recruited centrally from those other companies, we didn’t always feel the companies added to the Corporation as a whole – was this good business, we worried, or empire building? We knew other companies in the group had the same issues and felt the same anxieties. There was – restlessness. The new companies needed corporate funding, money which many felt could have been better spent elsewhere. One of the bigger companies hit a financial crisis, and had to be bailed out, which made more of our directors and shareholders uneasy. A lot of money was spent propping up companies failing due to poor management. Staff were being taken on from all over whether or not they had skills to offer, and causing problems as they infiltrated the companies within the Corporation.

Whispers spread that departments central to individual company policy would soon be centralized. We had little say on the Corporation’s future plans, some of which were contrary to our own mission statement. Eventually enough of the shareholders were complaining that an extraordinary general meeting was called – stay in the Corporation, or leave? In the run-up to the EGM, a lot of what can only be called politicking went on, and this time, the slim majority was in favour of going.

The CEO promptly resigned, and was replaced by a director who had been pro the Corporation. The Corporation itself, financially unbalanced and relying on our company’s contribution, with other restless companies in the group, set itself to make the dissolving of the merger as difficult as possible. Staff and shareholders who had benefited from life under the corporate umbrella complained constantly, and were clearly going to make the future as difficult as possible, even though their own livelihoods would be affected by their negativity. They painted corporate life in glowing colours, and our future as bleak. Others, eagerly waiting the opportunities offered by the company being back under its own control, were frustrated by the new CEO’s half-hearted ineffectual plans to dissolve the merger.

A rock and a hard place. Another EGM, to choose between a future increasingly under the Corporation’s control,financial, and management, decisions, with nearly half the stakeholders shouting TOLD YOU SO every time a bad decision is made?

Or breaking free with nearly half the stakeholders determined to make the future as difficult as possible - and as in fact this isn’t a company, without the option to fire the moaners and replace them with pragmatists who will get on with the job?

This is Brexit.