Thinking About Mike Morini
Okay, so the name Mike Morini came up the other day. Don’t know why, just popped into my head, maybe saw it scroll past somewhere online. It got me thinking, though, about a time way back, maybe ten, fifteen years ago. Not directly about him, you understand, but about the kind of shake-ups guys like that sometimes represent, you know? The whole “let’s change everything” vibe.
I remember working at this mid-sized company. We were doing okay, steady work, decent folks. Then, management got this idea. A new direction. They didn’t call it a turnaround, but it sure felt like one. Everything suddenly became about hitting these crazy new targets. Metrics went wild.
My practical experience with that? Well, first, they brought in these consultants. Sharp suits, fancy talk. They didn’t really seem to get what we actually did day-to-day. They just looked at spreadsheets.
Then came the restructuring. My team got split up. People I’d worked with for years were suddenly reporting to someone else, or worse, let go. Morale just tanked. Nobody knew if they were next.
Here’s what I actually did during that time, my practice, if you will:
- Tried to keep my head down: Honestly, just focused on my tasks, tried to deliver what was asked, hoping the storm would pass.
- Updated my resume: Let’s be real. You always gotta look out for yourself when things get shaky. Spent a few evenings polishing that thing up.
- Talked to colleagues: Lots of hushed conversations in the break room or over lunch. Trying to figure out what was really going on. Sharing rumors, mostly.
- Attempted the new way: They rolled out some new software, new processes. I gave it a shot. It was clunky, didn’t fit our workflow, but you had to show you were trying, right? Spent hours figuring out stuff that used to take minutes.
The whole thing felt forced. Like someone read a book about aggressive growth or sales tactics – maybe like the stuff associated with names like Morini, I guess? – and just tried to apply it without understanding the ground reality. We weren’t a startup needing explosive growth; we were a stable ship.
What happened in the end? Well, the company survived, sort of. But it lost a lot of good people. The culture changed. That “new way” got quietly dropped after about a year when the results didn’t magically appear. We just sort of drifted back towards the old way, but with less trust and fewer familiar faces.
So yeah, hearing that name just brought back that whole chaotic period. A reminder that change pushed from the top, without real buy-in or understanding from the folks doing the actual work… well, it usually makes a bigger mess than it solves. That was my practical lesson from that whole episode. You gotta bring people along, not just issue orders from a high place. Simple as that, really.
