Certain financial and fiscal considerations do not encourage the manager to sell his company. However, there are other lesser known considerations that can influence this decision.
These are psychological brakes.
While these are strong, some will never make this decision.
Others will give up their project during the transfer process because they will have realized that they are not ready for this professional and personal change.
The risk in the long run is that we will not be able to sell and we will have to close the company.
This is regrettable because it undermines the economic dynamism of a territory that is losing jobs and know-how.
In large companies, the preparation of executive succession is part of an overall strategy. The problem is in fact limited to the transfer of management power.
On the other hand, in SMEs, this question implies a change of management and a transfer of ownership.
The manager is generally very attached to his company.
He gave his time and his work force without counting the cost. He brought his ideas, his way of perceiving the economic and social environment, his way of organizing and managing. He invested his savings while assuming financial risks. He held the course during crises and overcame multiple problems.
It has also sometimes assumed the weight of its forebears, whose respectability and continuity had to be preserved while innovating sufficiently to remain competitive.
Transfer to an outside party? Risk of shock
Simply because it is an asset intimately linked to his own person, which means that a little of “himself” is sold.
The company is also his source of identity, professional status and income.
Philippe Pailot, Senior Lecturer at the IAE of Lille specialized in Human Resources Management and Organizational Analysis, wrote that selling one’s company is for some people like “leaving a human community but also leaving a social status and renouncing one’s identity.
This decision is always accompanied by the loss of power, legitimacy and meaning.
The stronger the emotional bond, the harder the breakup.
The leader must give up his reason for living and enter a zone of uncertainty.
– Will the company survive his departure?
– what will happen to the employees?
– Will the buyer be up to the task?
There are also deeper psychological barriers.
The life story of the manager also contributes to the structuring of his attachment to his company.
Fear of losing the object of an attachment
The choice not to give in is not only due to a desire to preserve a form of power but rather to the fear of losing an object of attachment (the company) which has allowed the construction of a personal and social identity.
A company transfer is sometimes the end of a life story and the loss of a strongly invested link.
It is an act that results in the more or less radical and definitive rupture of a link at multiple levels (financial, material, patrimonial, emotional, identity).
The intimacy of the manager’s story is therefore not negligible when it comes to making the decision to sell.
The transmission of one’s business is a human story.
These feelings and emotions may arise at different times during the transfer process. They may be more or less strong from one person to another.
If the blockages are significant, it is advisable to seek help from a specialist.
The transfer of one’s company should not be a painful act.
It must be an opportunity to make a fresh start.
Fabienne Gallet
Consultant Mergers & Acquisitions Actoria
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