Every time private equity comes into a company, it is interesting to see how the culture changes at the company. Most companies I join tend to be on the small and coming into a growth and/or transition phase. When I join the company normally has a strong culture focused around a type of client and figuring out how to serve them best. The culture tends to also be strong, one that generally involves a lot of work, but includes nice extras in the break room, private offices, not overpacked spaces, etc. However when private equity comes in, what could also ready have been a 50 to 60 hour week at a small company will now push even harder to be 60+ hours. The focus of the extras goes away, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly as an unneeded overhead. In general the stress levels on the team tend to go up as we are all pushed to hit harder and bigger goals on less; even though we have more money now to work with.
It is hard to say these changes are bad, as the private equity tends to bring a focus to a company and a drive that will likely result in the best outcome for the stakeholders, many of which are the ones working their when it was small. But the added stress can do real damage to people’s lives now and in the long term, which leaves me a middle manager in a fun situation of trying to balance the welfare of my team and the interests of my stakeholders. Stakeholders can push so hard that they destroy the things that created the value in the first place, but those that have been around for a while could be relaxed to the point they are no longer making as much value. The balance is a fine line sometimes and I don’t have the answer.