The Human Aftermath of a Fix-or-Sell Mandate
When the entire senior team walks out, what’s left?
(The strategic lens Case Study: how unseen leadership pressure and culture dynamics affect portfolio performance.)
A PE group we supported had just acquired a portfolio of companies. Their job: decide which to keep and grow, and which to fix and sell.
At one firm they hoped to grow and sell later, the entire senior management team quit within two weeks.
We were asked to rebuild leadership from the remaining middle managers and guide them to profitability across three unrelated product lines.
We helped them learn how to work as a team, decode the real causes of weak margins, refresh each value proposition, and keep distributors from bolting. All this change was very de-stabilizing across the organization and especially for these managers suddenly in the spotlight.
We ultimately chose to close one division that would never be profitable — a hard but necessary call.
But the biggest challenge wasn’t operational. It was emotional.
These new leaders were suddenly in roles their former bosses had held. Their peers resented them. The legacy culture said, don’t speak above your pay grade.
Under pressure, it would have been easy to blame the PE firm, the economy, or “the old guard.”
Instead, we taught this new leadership team to look below the surface, stay focused on strengths, and confront issues, not people.
When their division was later sold to a rival and their brand disappeared overnight, they still held together, emerging as the leaders of the combined company two years later.
More importantly for the partners, they were able to return the investment when that outcome was doubtful.
Performance turns when people can face the truth without losing heart.
PE can’t manufacture that resilience, but it can invest in it.
