Business benefit is front of mind for the acquirer. This is about acceleration of strategy, either to source skilful people immediately, expand markets quickly, or diversify offerings sooner than would be possible doing so in-house.

For the acquired, it is often about turning all of that effort put into creating something of value into something liquid. A reward for years of hard work.

Of course there is usually a delay for both parties in receiving what they were seeking from the transaction. An earn-out period for the seller, incentivising them to maintain business performance until they receive the full sale price. And for the buyer, the expected benefits to the bottom line usually take a number of years to materialise.

Their shared desire is that the integration of the organisations is a success to provide them with the best opportunity to achieve their desired outcomes.

Merger integration strategies must be adaptive rather than prescriptive. By changing the connections people have with each other, and changing their context, we bring about sustainable organisational change. From this beneficial patterns emerge.

Ritual Dissent and Insight & Alignment conversations are some of the ways different groups can start to hear each other and sense how to encourage more of what is helpful, and less of what isn’t.

Even more simply than getting people from both groups together for this type of conversation is a reflective exercise by one of more people overseeing the transaction. Here are some questions that can be helpful for this type of exercise:

1 - What do you want out of this merger?

2 - Why are you doing it?

3 - What are you afraid of?

4 - What are you excited about?

5 - What are the greatest unknowns?

6 - What can you offer?

7 - What can they offer you?

8 - Do you feel comfortable hearing and sharing these things?

9 - What ideas do you have for moving things towards the good outcomes?

10 - How can you continually adapt to what is changing around you?

11 - Do you think everyone can commit to a direction, even if there is some disagreement?

12 - What would it take to build trust?

13 - What would help in your environment to move towards the goals you have?

14 - How could the relationships change to move closer to your goals?

15 - What does success look like in 12 months?

16 - What are the shareholders expecting?

17 - Are there DNA elements that need to change, or be learnt?

18 - How might you go about doing this?

19 - What stories might capture key cultural traits?

20 - What safe-to-fail experiments could you run?

At a campsite I will wander off in random directions, understanding the lay of the land, experiencing its sounds, temperatures and smells.

At a party I do a sweep of the space, noticing the vibe, the people and of the exits.

And at an organisation I book in as many 1:1s as I can, from as diverse a group of people as possible. Leaders, old timers, new-starters. Those with internal-facing roles; those with external facing roles.

And now I have noticed a new level of orientation I am craving. Where am I in relation to the moon and sun? Where am I in relation to the other planets? And where am I in relation to my galaxy?

It is a mind-trip if you want to try it. I’m slowly becoming aware of the moon’s location at any one time. And I can sense, if I stop to imagine long enough, the solar plane I am on and how this aligns with the other planets.

My newest exploration is feeling into where I am positioned in relation to our galaxy.

For those of us who live in the cities, is can be difficult to remember we are even part of a galaxy. We do not get the daily, or nightly, reminder of that those living in darker places get. I’m finding tools like Night Sky a big help as I orient myself to larger contexts and cycles.

From where I am located in the southern hemisphere, the plane of my orbit around the sun varies with the seasons, but is always east-west ish. When I write this, in September in Melbourne, the planets appear (Venus and Jupiter spectacularly so in the early morning sky) to be in a plane to the north of where I am.

And our solar plane is around 60 degrees to the plane of our galaxy. Which means the Milky Way appears to traverse something closer to a south-north axis. And in relation to the galactic plane, we are on our own cycle, sometimes below and sometimes above, traversing this over millions of years, and currently sitting a little north.

So what? Well, if nothing else, I’m loving this larger sense of where I am within our universe - it fills me with awe as I contemplate it. It calms me and settles me, taking me away from the micro-concerns of this moment.

Before it was sold to Block around three years ago, I as part of the leadership team at Cogent. Part of my role was to working on the strategy for the business, and strategic projects that would bring that strategy to life.

This piece is a republishing of something I wrote in 2020, about some of the most filling work I have done.

If you were able to see the heart of Cogent, if you were able to get to its core and see something physical there, the thing you would be looking at would be some manifestation of our values. Our values are what define us as an organisation. They shape the decisions we make every day, both large and small. They inform who we hire, the clients we work with, our strategy and our operations. Without our values, Cogent would not last.

You can imagine then, that when it comes to something so crucial to the fabric of our business, we tread carefully when thinking about changing them. It would be tempting to stay away from making any modifications at all. Too hard, too many implications, too many unknowns. The business is working just fine as it is – let’s leave that stuff alone.

But as James Carse says in his book Finite and Infinite Games, only that which can change can continue. We want to continue as an entity. We want to continue to be relevant to our people, our clients, and the unfolding context we find ourselves in. In order to enable that, we need to be able to change even that which is most foundational.

We had a hunch that our values could be improved sometime around the middle of 2018. We could see that, although some of our values were referred to frequently when asked, nobody seemed to be able to recall all six, and a few of them were consistently forgotten by all but those with the best memories. Some of our values were alive, and some were petering along.

Around that time we had our annual Cogent Day, a time where all of Cogent’s employees gather in one place. It was a beautiful time of story-telling and sharing each person’s experience of what our values meant to them. What also emerged from this time together was a sense that we were ready to look at our values again. That we wanted them to be an even more important part of our experience at Cogent.

It was at this stage we designed a more formal process for how we would go about refining our values. It would take time and would involve investment from the business. There would be moments of uncertainty and ambiguity, but we thought that the end product would be worth it.

The initial driver for this was to reduce our values from six to four. In order to decide which values to remove, we wanted to gather input from anyone at Cogent who wanted to contribute. At the time of doing this work, Cogent had about 50 employees. Each person was invited to share their thoughts through either a one-on-one interview or via a facilitated group session. Everyone who wanted to contribute, which ended up being about half of Cogent’s people, decided to have one-on-one chat.

As an input into these discussions, each person read through a draft proposal of the refined values. This was compiled based on what we had already learned from Cogent day and other, less formal, discussions. The primary purpose of this was to gauge whether we were heading in the right direction and to create a starting point for discussion. While nothing was even close to being locked in at this stage, the document did suggest dropping two of our six values, along with some rationale and commentary.

The conversations that followed were rich and diverse. There was a sense of pride in Cogent, that Cogent took their values so seriously that they would invest in talking with so many people, that Cogent was prepared to let go of something so central in order for something even better to emerge, and that it was prepared to face the uncertainty and ambiguity that such a process could bring.

After the conversion process was complete, the rich qualitative data generated was absorbed and allowed to percolate . The notes from each interview were read and re-read. Patterns, links and differences were noted. Over a period of weeks, a modified set of values started to emerge.

Even at this stage, it was not easy to grasp or articulate what all of the values were. It was clear that some of the existing values would remain and it was also clear that others only required some slight tweaking. The difficulty came when we began to see that some values needed to be dropped, and that there were others emerging in their place.

Through a combination of deep discussion and quiet reflection, we wrested with words; we um-ed and ah-ed about the importance of sticking to our initial criteria of four values. We came to a conclusion: for the next phase of Cogent’s existence there would be five values: Transparency, Wellbeing, Inclusion, Meaning, and Evolution.

The anecdote

This post was spawned from a previous post about the constraints I chose after being separated, which I wrote about here. The constraint I chose, and still choose, is to be an involved father.

But what constraint would I choose if I didn't have kids? Perhaps it is a useless thought experiment. Or perhaps it may reveal some important truth or desire within me. Let's see where this leads.

Given where I am, right now, if I did not have kids, and given I do not have a partner, there are not really any constraints that keep me in a specific place. So something around movement is not a constraint I would choose.

Perhaps it might be something about wellbeing. Can a constraint be something I choose to seek? It seems counter-intuitive: that I can be constrained to maintain my wellbeing. Or perhaps the constraint is, I am open to anything as long as it does not compromise my wellbeing.

Or is it something like growth? Is my number one, foundational constraint, to keep growing as a person?

Rather than thinking about the constraint I would choose, another way to look at this might be what I would choose to do right now if I did not have kids. My reflection tells me that I would look to build a strong community with a small group of people who were looking to do some good in the world. I would not be worried about building up wealth and capital. I would be working on a longer-term plan to find these people, connect with them deeply, and form a project that we were all working on together. This would be some kind of land-based project. Like creating an eco-village.

The insight

My insight from this thought experiment is that the long-term aim of my life would not be dramatically different if I did not have kids. The balance of activities definitely would be, as would the speed with which I was heading towards my long-term aim. But what is clear is that my constraint of being an involved father does not restrict me from finding this group of people and starting to build the level of trust and depth I am looking for.

The phase I am in with my family right now means that primarily I need stability - in the home and in finances and in relationships. I have found stability in some of these things and am working towards the others. At the same time, I am working with the groups of people I have found to start creating the projects. I am doing this in a way that does not compromise my stability, a balance I have not historically always gotten right.

The consequences

This has been a useful exercise. It has shown me that some of what I am doing is not so much about being an involved dad, but rather about wanting my kids to see me in a certain light. Like being a good provider.

So given that I am using my kids as an excuse for living in a way I don't necessarily want to live, how can I still be an involved father and also shift my life?

I think that I am on this path. I have recently changed jobs. I am connecting with a group of people. I have started these projects. And even more excitedly, I think these projects are things my boys can get involved with as well. Working side-by-side, like old-school mentoring and wisdom passing.

The mindful wrap-up

So there we go. Not sure I ended up where I expected. Or whether this was about identifying a hypothetical constraint. But I have found a blind spot in some of my decision-making. Where I am more concerned about the perception of my kids than I am about actually being involved with them, and showing them how to live a full, rich, aligned, curious life (see The tyranny of dreams for how my son is also grappling with this).

The anecdote

I'm driving home with my eldest son after footy training. I have been coaching his team for around six years, and he loves the game. On many occasions, he has told me that he would love to be a professional footballer. The trouble is, his body is not built for it. Or perhaps not yet built for it. He is short for his age, and the power and speed needed for the brand of football played here is not something that sits within his current capability.

But still, he has worked hard. He has trained his ability to run. He has gone to the gym to build what muscle he can. He has developed his skills with the ball. And he has worked to build his game smarts.

The skills and the smarts are the things that come most naturally to him. He knows where to run to and always sets up his teammates because of the care he has when the ball comes his way.

One of the things I admire about him the most is that, despite his relative size, he plays with courage, putting himself in situations where he is contesting with much larger bodies, while still keeping himself safe.

Another thing that I admire about him was epitomised in what he said on our way home from footy training that night. He is amazingly aware of himself and his context, and he is honest about what he is aware of.

We had made the finals for the first time, and training had been abuzz. We had great players in our team, and the boys were gelling at the right time of the season.

There is a moment of silence in the car before my son reflects by saying, 'Dad, I think it is going to be very hard for me to be a professional footballer. I am an above-average player in a fourth-division team'. We both silently weighed the significance of what he had just said.

He was right, of course; it was going to be very difficult for him to make it. It is very difficult for anyone to make it. Of all the kids playing football right now across the country, less than 0.1% of them will get an opportunity to play at the elite level.

I asked him how he felt about that. He said he felt sad, but that it was okay. That he realised there were other things he was good at and could aim for.

In that moment I felt a flood of love for him. I shared the pain of his realisation that a dream he had held was not likely to come to pass. I admired his self-awareness, his honesty, and his courage to share it out loud. It was a moment of connection between us. When the brutal realities of life crack our naive expectations, and through the resultant crumbling create something beautiful.

The insight

I can see that I have put my own expectations on my son and through osmosis planted my own unfulfilled dreams within him. And I can see how wonderful it is that he has been able to look at the reality of his body and his environment to see how unrealistic it is, and perhaps something he did not really want anyway.

The consequences

As this only happened a few weeks ago, I expect the realisations from this story to play out over the next few years. In the short term, I feel even closer to my son. I can see that he is starting to explore other things he is curious about, and as a result the world is opening up to him in new ways.

The consequences for me are that I am even more willing to let go of my own dreams, understanding at a new level that dogged adherence to them can be a self-imposed tyranny. And of course, to be even more aware of the expectations I put on my boys; to evolve my role to be one of a guide helping them discover what is true about themselves, and how this might play into their world.

The mindful wrap-up

I wonder if honesty is the most important trait in a human. If one sought to be honest about the experience of being here as their most important aim, could a life be well lived around that alone? It would beget a focus on ever-expanding awareness of one's body, one's mind, one's history, and one's context. And then a humble sharing of this expanding awareness in a reflexive, open exploration with others.

The anecdote

I am a mess. My wife has just moved out and I have two young boys to look after by myself for a whole week at a time. They are 2 and 5 years old. How the hell am I going to do this?

I lay in bed. I have had a glass of wine after putting the boys to sleep. It is the first time I have done this in a number of weeks, and it was so good to be able to chill out for a while. A friend came over and we had a few laughs and for a minute I could take my mind off my crumbling context.

In bed I am on my phone. Checking who knows what for unnecessary reasons. I put my phone on the charger next to my bed.

In the middle the night I wake up. I check my phone to see what time it is and see that I have got a message. I check the message; nothing important. But now my mind is awake, my heart is beating faster, and I am stressing that I will not be able to get back to sleep.

I somehow manage to drift off after about an hour, and before I am ready to wake up the boys are awake. The days is on. And I feel terrible. I have a dull headache from the wine. I am hazy from lack of sleep. And the boys sense it right from the outset.

The day is difficult; much more difficult than it needs to be. I somehow struggle through with bursts of anger and tears and quite a bit of time in from the of the TV.

Sitting on the couch in this state I had a realisation. I already knew that I was going to have to take excellent care of myself to be able to get through this. But now the first step I needed to take was clear: I needed to ensure that each night I got the best night's sleep I could. Sleep became my keystone habit.

The insight

The thing I realised is that tomorrow doesn’t begin when I wake up; it begins starts at dinner time the night before. That is the moment when I have the opportunity to enable the next day to get off to an excellent start. I do this through eating well. Through putting down technology. Through winding down before bed. And through getting to bed at a time that enables me to get eight hours of sleep.

The consequences

In an upcoming post, I talk about the web of wellbeing (future post on Wellbeing to come). What I found to be the most useful node to optimise within that web is the sleep node. Getting this right requires the organisation of a number of other things, but it also has an uplifting impact on everything else. Being present becomes easier. Making good decisions becomes easier. Exercise becomes more effective. I am more creative. I am more relaxed. And I get sick less often.

The mindful wrap-up

What might be the one node of wellbeing that you optimise for? And could it be sleep? Are there some basic things you can do this evening to give yourself a chance at a better night’s sleep?

The anecdote

I grew up in within a household and community culture that was resolute in its conviction that marriage was for life. This was not something I even questioned for myself. For those around me that had marriages that ended, they had failed. They must have given up too early without trying to work things out properly. This was part of a religious bundle of certainties that my life was framed around, including the certainty of God, the certainty of an afterlife, the need for certainty and 'faith' about anything written in the Bible.

At the time of my marriage, I was still firmly in this world of certainty. Over the unfolding years, however, I started to see that there were many things that were less certain than I realised. I become less certain that there was a plan for my life. Less certain that evil did not prosper. And less certain that there was a God in the form that I had once believed. However through all of this, my certainty about the foundations of marriage, and in particular my marriage, remained steadfast and unquestioned.

So when my wife at the time came to me and said that she was starting the think about a divorce, I was rattled. Not only was I completely taken by surprise by this - I had thought that our marriage was in good shape (see future post on How is your marriage going?) - but the one thing I thought was certain seemed no longer to be the case.

In the unravelling that occurred over the following 3 months, and then the following year, this was a profound truth that completely changed my perspective about the world. If the one thing I thought was certain was actually uncertain, then that meant everything was uncertain.

David Chapman might call this a moment of realising that there is no pattern to this world. That everything is meaningless. That everything is nebulous. That I have been walking on clouds this whole time, thinking that I was walking on the most solid of rocks.

This is, of course, an intermediate phase. A moment of necessary crumbling and potential nihilism where nothing seems meaningful or worth doing. If everything is uncertain, how can I proceed in any direction? Perhaps it doesn't matter then. Perhaps I can be destructive.

This it what it felt like for me for some time. That I could not depend upon anything. That I was walking on clouds that could give way at any moment.

It was both liberating and terrifying. If nothing was certain, then I could change anything. What did I want to change? Who did I want to be? What constraints would I choose for my life (see Single Mindful Dad: My Chosen Constraint)?

The insight

If the most unshakable thing in my life was actually shakable, and in fact disintegrating, then that meant anything in my life could change at any moment. My job. My health. My relationship with my kids. My friendships. The structure of our society. It was all fundamentally fiction (see Yourav Hurari in Sapiens on fiction being one of the key tools of our species).

If my marriage could change, then anything could change.

The consequences

The immediate consequence of this insight was that I unravelled. My life no longer made any sense. All the futures I had planned would no longer be. The idea I had of myself was no longer relevant. I spent some time allowing myself to unravel (see future post on Unravelling).

And then I was able to start picking myself up again. I could see that this uncertainty was something I could play with. Something that could be a liberation for me.

Because it meant that many of the things I thought of as given and as inevitable, actually were not. Things like not enjoying my job. Like being able to quit my job. Being able to explore my creativity. These were things that were not certain. I could play with these things. I could create in these margins.

The mindful wrap-up

As it stands I am able to live within the tension of pattern and nebulosity. There is pattern to our reality - there are things that have a degree of certainty. And there is also a lot of fiction, some of which is useful.

The idea of marriage can itself be useful. But more useful is realising that it is a made-up concept that serves some purposes, and that it can crumble at any minute.

And so it is with my kids and my job and my health and my sense of narrative about my life. There are helpful things about them, but they are fragile and temporary and I allow them to change.

What things do you hold as been unshakable certainties? And what might loosening the grip you have on their certainty enable?

The anecdote

It was my off-week with the boys, and I was sitting with a friend in a bar (pre my commitment to stop drinking…future post on Alcohol to come). He was one of my longest-standing friends; somebody I trust deeply and at the same time somebody who has challenged many of my most fundamental ideas about my perception of the world, including my view of relationships and sexuality. A friend from childhood, he was one of the first friends I had that came out as gay. Although I don't see him that much any more, he is a person I have a deep love and respect for.

As we were sitting in the bar, I was talking about the sudden change that had occurred in my life, relaying the story of the early days (future post on Origin Story to come). I was down in the dumps you might say. The most certain thing in my life had been taken away from me, and now everything seemed uncertain (future post on Uncertainty to come).

In one of his many pearls of wisdom and fundamental challenge, my friend opened up a world of truth to me. He said, "You know what: you can do anything you like from this moment. You have all the options in the world. If you wanted, you could travel to South America tomorrow and forget about this whole life you have here, and start something completely new".

I didn't know what to say. It jolted my sense of reality; something that was becoming quite common at this point in my life. Although I didn't want to acknowledge the choice and power I had, I intuitively knew he was right. Of course he was right. I had the money for the travel. I had a passport. I could leave tomorrow and start again. Removing all reference points to this painful episode; giving myself a clean start.

So if that were possible, then many of the constraints I experience in my life are constraints I choose. So what constraints do I choose?

In the coming days I thought deeply about this. What constraints do I choose in my life? I could come up with one fundamental constraint, which is still valid to this day.

The constraint I choose is to be an involved father in the life of my boys. Every other decision I make is built upon that constraint.

Thanks for your unique way of seeing the world, C, and for the moments of clarity you have enabled in my life.

The insight

The big insight for me is that I can choose many of the key constraints I have in my life. This is exciting and empowering, and also scary because it means I have more agency and responsibility than I might have been willing to admit.

I was able to see that there is only one constraint that I choose for the time being: to be the best father I can be.

The consequences

The consequences of this have been probably the most profound of any insight I have had. Every other choice I make is built upon this one.

For example, choosing not to drink, choosing where to live, choosing the type of job I want, choosing to take a year off work: these are all things that are tied back to this fundamental constraint.

This has been clarifying and energising for me. It has helped me to make many decisions, while also reminding me of what is most important to me.

I suppose one day I will discover that there is actually something more fundamental that this decision; perhaps underneath my decision to be an involved father there is something like a desire to create life, love and beauty in the world. That is not yet clear to me; but a good thought experiment for another time: What primary constraint would I choose if I did not have kids?

The mindful wrap-up

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all making choices about the things that will constrain our lives. I am grateful for a friend who helped me to see that I could bring more awareness to the constraints I choose.

Choosing to be an involved father has brought clarity and purpose to many of the subsequent decisions I have had to make from that point on.

What constraints are you choosing in your life? Are there some that are no longer valid? Are there different constraints you could choose that may enable more of what you want in your life?