Dear Reader,
Welcome to the 81st edition of the good reads newsletter by Malpani Ventures. Sharing your weekly dose of articles for this weekend’s reading!
A Friendly Reminder to Cost-Cutters: Keep the Company a Great Place to Work for Survivors
https://kellblog.com/2023/11/02/cut-costs-the-smart-way/
Dave Kellogg shares his ideas on how go about downsizing your expenses:
In addition, the management team is likely still wedged in an incremental rather than absolute mentality — meaning that while a given function had $5M last year and needs to cut to “only” $4.5M this year (and yes, that’s after absorbing some naturally inflating costs), that $4.5M is still a heck of a lot of money and, for that matter, a lot more function budget than we had three years ago when we were in the earlier stages of building the company. To solve the latter problem, the executive team needs to first heal itself (by reframing their own thinking) and then get the rest of the management team on board with absolute rather than incremental, year-over-year thinking.
What Makes a Great Acquisition?
Insights on making acquisitions work:
What makes extroverted CEOs better dealmakers? Is it simply a case of a reality distortion field at work? That may be part of the equation; charisma on earnings calls can certainly assist stock price performance. However, it’s not the only factor at play. Extroverted CEOs also benefit from broader social networks. For example, they are more likely to serve on the boards of other companies, giving them greater insight into adjacent industries and potential acquisition targets.
Per one Academy of Management paper, the “congruence” of cultures is critical to an acquisition’s success. Matchmaking between firms requires more than merely complementary businesses.
Developing high performers
A useful read on nurturing the best talents at your company:
From a company perspective, you have to do this if you want to retain high performers. If you’re not offering them exciting opportunities that scare them, they will get bored and leave.
While often you can’t really control whether a company goes bankrupt or goes public, you CAN create customized growth plans for individuals by putting J Curves in front of them and providing support.
Until next time!