It's been a while since I posted one of my own mistake stories, so here's one:
I joined a company as VP Sales & Marketing after it had been purchased by a private equity firm (another Mistake Bank story entirely). My predecessor was leaving the company and our tenures overlapped by a few weeks. He made sure I knew he was available to talk whenever I wanted.
I did spend some time with him, but not too much. I asked him for summaries of the existing accounts, but got frustrated with the pace and the selection--he started doing them in alphabetical order, and I wanted them from largest to smallest.
One reason was I had (at least thought I had) a very different strategy to pursue from the past sales strategy. There was also the feeling (not explicitly confirmed) that he was being moved out because his vision wasn't suitable for the future.
There was also a visceral feeling of rivalry that got in the way. Why did I want to share my thoughts with this person who had done this job, with whom I'd be compared for the next months and years? It was easier to just keep my distance.
Which I did. A few weeks later, he was gone, and we only talked once or twice since then.
If I had it to do over, I would have spent more time quizzing him about the culture of the company. How are things done here? How do you lead people in this environment? I would try to test out my strategy: could this work? What obstacles and issues might get in the way of achieving this strategy? If you were me, what would you do right now?
But that's for another time. In this case, I didn't ask any of those questions, and it's impossible to know how much effect had on our results the next several years.
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