The Words

Like a new puppy

Before I acquired it for her, it was 'The Cellular Research Center.' But I explained that she could rename it whatever she wanted. It was her company. She mulled that over like a little girl trying to pick out a name for a new puppy. 'Life Extension Institute? Forever, Inc.?' She liked 'Forever, Inc.,' except people might assume it was a giant tattoo parlor whose ink was guaranteed never to fade, which led her to consider getting a tattoo. What did I think? I told her she could do what she wanted because she would no matter what I said. Just no face or neck tattoos, please. At least none permanent.

I did convince her CEO to stay on. He told me he was excited to see what my wife had planned. He was also happy to be working under new ownership. We - he always included me, although the company belonged entirely to my wife - were the type of ownership he could only have dreamed of having. He continued to operate the business with every effort to make it profitable, hopefully even after covering the expenses of my wife's projects, old and new. But if there was any shortfall due to the cost of those, he was to let me know. If necessary, I'd fund anything she wanted to do with my own money, our money, I immediately corrected myself. That had been the plan from the beginning. Everything else had to pay its own way.

I don't believe she cared much about what the company was named. She was too busy struggling with her new lack of constraints. She needed to catch her breath, get organized, and quit wasting time. First, she needed to determine what to do with her current assignments that did not align with her ultimate objective. When this came up during her initial face-to-face with her CEO, now her employee, he offered to handle their reassignment. She didn't need to give them another thought. All her formerly secret research projects were now officially sanctioned priority projects.

The CEO was surprised to discover the number of these and all she'd accomplished "under the table." Right under his nose. He might have fired her, had he known, because of the dictates of his previous investors and board of directors. He was never so happy to discover what he'd been unaware was happening in the company he supposedly ran.

My wife spent a month or more wrapping her mind around the fact that the entire company was officially hers. And that she really could do whatever she wanted. I had given her Carte Blanche for her birthday. And, as that settled in, she needed to define what that reality meant now that it had arrived. She needed to put together a comprehensive game plan. Several of us who'd had experience doing just that offered to assist her, including Bob, my brother, myself, and her CEO. The fact that the 'CEO' now worked for her still felt strange for them both. She went to 'his' office and continued to feel the need to be deferential. He hadn't known or been aware of her before I bought her the company. He'd been far more aware of me, who had nothing to do with the company he ran. Now he felt the need to stand and offer her his chair when she walked into the room. It was an interesting little dance to witness.

Bob was incredibly valuable in assisting my wife in putting together her plan. After all, he oversaw all our research projects. He understood her dilemmas, beginning with wanting to do it all herself. She needed to delegate most of it and keep just the tastiest parts. Learning this lesson for himself had felt equivalent to pulling out his fingernails. Let go, or there was no point having employees or her own company.

Bob recommended that my wife's priority be forming a core team to put the rest of her plan together and execute it. Then she'd be delegating from the start and wouldn't find herself suddenly overwhelmed, trying to figure out how to bring on people and get them up to speed while she struggled to manage her projects. Her core team didn't need to be the technically most brilliant people. In fact, in his experience, the technically most brilliant people would rather be doing research, not managing other people who did. And it would be a misuse of talent to build her core team of all the geniuses she could identify in her organization.