Surviving a Merger Without Losing Yourself

Ralph Kellogg: [: 00:00:00

I I went in my car and I actually cried and I thought, it doesn't my mindset at that point was, it doesn't matter how good I am, how smart I am, the education level that I have what I've done, that doesn't matter. All of that is separate because at the end of the day I wasn't good enough because I'm gay and that's what I internalized.

The other thing that I had to keep in mind is I had to pull myself back together and go back into the building because there was a statement that was made to me that they weren't ready to share with the organization who was staying and who was going. They needed people on my team to stay.

inated immediately, as would [: 00:01:00

So all of these things are swirling around that I'm carrying and I have gotta go back into the building and pretend that everything is fine. And so I, I would say that, at the worst yes, betrayal. Completely having the rug pulled out from under me and then thinking, I've somehow gotta find a way to make this, make it through, because it's just, it's more than just me who will be impacted by this if I say something.

g the acquiring versus being [: 00:02:00

If you're being acquired, you have a lot of things going through your mind, and a lot of it boils down to, am I going to survive? What happens after the acquisition? That in and of itself is stressful enough. Now imagine if you had to navigate that entire situation after. Your HR leader forces you into a conversation or a disclosure that you didn't wanna disclose.

You're trying to console yourself by saying, Hey. I think I'm in okay shape because this person knows my work. We've been friendly together for a while, so what I've disclosed shouldn't be that big of a deal. When you zoom out and you realize that this is happening in a state where you're not protected and it's happening in an industry where it's notoriously conservative in terms of how they move.

do you actually move through [: 00:03:00

Everything that I described and all the questions that I raised. Actually happened to Ralph Kellogg. Ralph is currently the CHRO at Lutheran Family Services, and he brings over 20 years of experience in human resources leadership development and organizational strategy.

Ralph's an adjunct instructor at Bellevue University in the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and he mentors emerging HR professionals through the Human Resources Association of the Midlands. He's the founder of Connection Points Consulting, and he provides HR consulting and team coaching with a focus on inclusion, mental wealth being and organizational culture.

iduals who may be struggling [: 00:04:00

He's a published writer in forbes.com, the HR Gazette, the SHRM blog, and he is also a TEDx Omaha speaker and frequent presenter at regional and national HR conferences.

Ralph, welcome to the show.

Ralph Kellogg: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Dr. Jim: you know how we do things here. We just tear the bandaid off. So share with us the moment in your career where you thought something really got screwed up and you were gonna get fired.

Ralph Kellogg: Yeah interesting happened probably when I was in my early thirties. I was working for a financial institution in, in, in the state in which I live, which is Nebraska, and been doing pretty well for myself. I was an assistant vice president, had promoted up the ranks pretty steadily in the time that I had been there.

eople were gonna go once the [: 00:05:00

One night I had my my manager at that point called my home, and this was back in the day when there were landlines, cell phones. I don't even know if they had been invented yet. I'm gonna age myself. But they they, the manager called and talked to my, my, my then my spouse, who was my partner at the time, now my husband.

And I don't know how she drew the inference from the fact. That he was my partner or my significant other. But I found myself the next day in her office thinking that we were going to be talking about the merger and the activity for the new for the new bank. Ultimately what happened was I came into her office and she began what I would feel like interrogating me and ultimately told me that she wanted me to unburden myself and wanted to let me know that it was okay.

Her, share what what, my, my [: 00:06:00

This is my boss. I was scared. And so ultimately I said, yep. I'm gay. And this is, the guy that you spoke to last night. It's my partner. And she said, that's great. Just know that, I'm an ally for you. I remember profusely sweating and just wanting to get out of that room as quickly as I could.

Dr. Jim: I'm listening to what you're describing and I've been through an acquisition.

I've been through a couple of acquisitions, and those are, especially if you're being the one that's getting eaten,

That's already. Pretty stressful because everybody in the organization is probably thinking, okay, which one of us is gonna have a job? But then you're put in this situation where you're called into the office. You already have that swirling around in your head, and then you're starting to get interrogated.

You just mentioned [: 00:07:00

Ralph Kellogg: I remember that was the first time that I ever understood the term fight or flight because all I wanted to do was flee. All I wanted to do was get out of there and. I just remember feeling afraid, feeling like no matter what I said was going to be the wrong answer, but just, trusting her.

I trusted her and I felt as though, okay, this might be uncomfortable for me, but maybe she really does want to help. Maybe she really does want to support me. And so being lulled in a little bit that if she's asking, she must care. And, all of that swirling with, I just wanna get out of here. This is so uncomfortable for me.

ared the heck out of me. And [: 00:08:00

I remember once it was over, just going into the bathroom and throwing cold water on my face just to center myself again. It was traumatic. It was just a really traumatic situation.

Dr. Jim: Everything that you said makes sense. So As I'm listening to you describe the situation, one of the things that comes to mind is how intrusive that interrogation is, and. I'm looking at that, and then I'm also comparing it to, we're all told to bring your whole self to work and be as authentic as possible.

Those things are in conflict right there. But the other thing that, that I'm thinking about in this scenario is, the way you're describing it fits the stereotype that many of us have heard that HR isn't your friend because somebody who's your friend isn't going to push you into a decision that.

ree things and I'm wondering [: 00:09:00

Ralph Kellogg: Yeah her being my manager, she and I had worked together for a while and. We weren't close, but I felt as though she was an ally. She was someone that I had a strong working relationship with. So there was that piece of, I've worked with her, I know her. I don't view her as someone who would want to hurt me.

So I've got that piece going on. I've got the other piece of thinking. I wanna get out of here because I, I was not ready to come out to anybody, let alone be forced to come out to somebody, regardless if it's somebody that I knew or didn't know. I've got that going on. And then the third piece of it is what's gonna happen to my career?

at this point. There were no [: 00:10:00

It would be okay to fire me if I was gay. And so knowing all of that at the time, it's o it's really overwhelming and compartmentalizing it and then being able to go back out into the work environment and do your job. Because you still have to perform was even more stressful. It was it was like watching myself being in a dream and watching myself go through the motions.

But realizing that all of these things had occurred in the course of about 20 minutes. It was less than a half hour conversation, and I felt like my world had been turned upside down. Like one of those snowflake paperweights, it was just dumped over and then there's just nothing but.

Snow and trying to navigate my way through it.

you flip over a snow globe. [: 00:11:00

I would be thinking the same exact things. If I were in that, in, in your position for any number of topics. It would be all risk mitigation is where my mind would be in, in getting in those conversations. 'cause the last thing that you want to do is rock the boat. So you get out of that meeting, you recenter yourself and then you're back into the fray. How did you get yourself back in the game so that you're functioning as normally as expected?

g through and then come back [: 00:12:00

Over lunch and, centering myself the problem that I encountered and it followed me was and when it followed me the aftermath of the anxiety attack followed me because when I would have one, I would perspire profusely. It would be like someone going through a rainstorm or through a marathon or something along those lines.

Going through all that, calming myself down. There wasn't medications at the time that I was aware of to take. So calming myself down, coming back in and looking, disheveled looking like I was a mess even though I had tried to pull myself back together again. So what I've really focused on doing.

row of the class who always [: 00:13:00

I stayed late. I came in early. I under promised and over-delivered. So if something, it could be done in a week, I would say, yep, I'll get it to you in a week. But it would really be two days. I tried to make sure that I showed my value because I didn't feel valued as a person.

So I thought if they don't, if I'm not feeling valued as a person, maybe I can I can show them my value as an employee. Maybe I can. I can compartmentalize and get what I need to get done that way, and so that's what I really focused on, was trying to be indispensable in my role.

underlying esteem component. [: 00:14:00

So when you're outside of work, what were the things that you were noticing that were happening as a byproduct of this, I'll call it show that you're putting on at work?

pasm because I was nodded up [: 00:15:00

Anxiety issues, obviously isolation. I felt really ashamed at that point in my life. I felt like even though I had done so much and felt like I was worthy to be in the room, that. I somehow had missed the mark in some way because I felt dispensable and I felt very thrown away by being put in a position and being forced out myself when I clearly wasn't in the mindset you know, emotionally or spiritually to do that.

And so all of those things really contributed to a person who. I went through the motions in many respects and had that experience taken incredible toll on my mental wellbeing.

is at least you had somebody [: 00:16:00

Ralph Kellogg: No. What ultimately happened is we, this was in the fall of 2005. We're going through the merger activity. There's a lot of conversation about which talent's going to be retained. We were the the company being acquired and there was a lot of, excitement, there's a lot of nervous energy around who is going to be retained, who's gonna work on what projects, things along those lines.

And I had noticed as we got closer to the actual target date of when the announcements were gonna be made about who was staying that. Projects and things that I was working on were slowly being redistributed. I didn't think anything of it because I just thought there's a bigger picture.

er, there's a bigger plan in [: 00:17:00

And there wouldn't be a place for me. And I needed to probably find a new job before the end of the year or excuse me, before the conversion date occurred, which was December 15th. It feels weird 20 years later, I can still remember the date. But that's the message that I was given.

ng that had changed was that [: 00:18:00

Outside of that, everything else up to that point stayed the same or had remained constant. Yep.

Dr. Jim: So if I'm TL ding, what you just said you, the way that I hear it is that you're standing there feeling betrayed on one, one side and you're feeling like you got the rug pulled out from you out from underneath you. As another component of it. And the third piece of it is you're sitting there thinking at least if it were me, I'd be sitting there thinking I put all this extra work in to justify a place to, to stick around and I'm not sticking around.

Why did I even bother? Okay. So you're looking at all three of those things and you're feeling those things in the moment, and now you've been told that. You have a, you're on the clock to be out. When you heard that, how did you process that and move forward from it?

d the news. I remember I was [: 00:19:00

I I went in my car and I actually cried and I thought, it doesn't my mindset at that point was, it doesn't matter how good I am, how smart I am, the education level that I have what I've done, that doesn't matter. All of that is separate because at the end of the day I wasn't good enough because I'm gay and that's what I internalized.

The other thing that I had to keep in mind is I had to pull myself back together and go back into the building because there was a statement that was made to me that they weren't ready to share with the organization who was staying and who was going. They needed people on my team to stay.

So I was carrying the weight [: 00:20:00

So all of these things are swirling around that I'm carrying and I have gotta go back into the building and pretend that everything is fine. And so I, I would say that, at the worst yes, betrayal. Completely having the rug pulled out from under me and then thinking, I've somehow gotta find a way to make this, make it through, because it's just, it's more than just me who will be impacted by this if I say something.

Dr. Jim: You're. Being given what sounds like a no win set of options, especially the fact that you can't like, reveal any of the stuff that's going on to anybody else because that's gonna cost you and it's gonna cost them.

So when you look at that, how did you deal with that?

l health professional. I got [: 00:21:00

And and I. I didn't feel like I could do that. So I do, I really at that point sought out a mental health therapist and went and was diagnosed at that point with anxiety and panic disorder and the therapist shared with me, that, and I revealed to the therapist at the time that all of the things that I had been experiencing with the news and the perspiration and all of those things that I go through, I had been dealing with that my whole life.

ow what they were during all [: 00:22:00

So I was getting the chest pains and the palpitations and all of the things that go along with panic attacks. And it was through really working through cognitive behavioral therapy as well as getting on some medication that I finally was able to begin dealing with my, with. My mental health issues, I just didn't realize at the time that I was dealing with anything related to mental health.

I just thought, this is a really bad situation. I need to get through it. I need to be professional. And all of these physical manifestations are just. Part of me being weird, part of how I process things. But it wasn't until I got therapy that I realized, no, that's not really what this is. It's a deeper seated issue.

king treatment for my mental [: 00:23:00

Dr. Jim: So that's a silver lining out of a bad situation. I wanna hit rewind real quick and think about how you were behaving after that meeting with HR where you were, forced to out yourself.

You entered this hyper work mode, and I think part of that hyper work mode was a result of what happened with hr. But the other part of it had to do with probably the fact that you were being acquired and you're of the mindset that you have to prove yourself, your right to stick around.

Why is that a misguided way of looking at the situation in terms of how the post-acquisition work rate gives you a business case to stick around?

What happens in acquisitions that people need to be aware of

experience had already been [: 00:24:00

What I didn't understand though, at the time, was that there was internal workings that were going on, internal politics that were going on internal planning sessions that were going on that I was never a part of, I was never in the room. And when you're not in the room you become dispensable and I was dispensable.

what I wish I would've known [: 00:25:00

And so I could have done anything at that point in terms of, showing my values, showing I was this, showing I was that. It wouldn't have mattered. The decision had already been made. The diet had already been cast, and I don't think that I was ever going to be invited to stay simply because those conversations were had while I wasn't in the room.

Dr. Jim: So there's two really important things that you mentioned that I think it's worth highlighting. One, if you're in an acquisition environment and you're the acquired company, the talent decisions are made. Before any announcement about the acquisition comes to a. It comes it comes out to public knowledge, so that's really important.

h respect to any acquisition [: 00:26:00

But there, there's a third component that I think it's it's pretty important to mention as well, and that's about. If you're not in the room where these conversations are happening, that should set off some sort of alert in your mind about what your future holds. There's a line in Hamilton, you want to be in the room where it happens.

was it about this experience [: 00:27:00

Ralph Kellogg: I would say there would be three things. One is the actually seeking help for my mental health and really finding out the root of, some of the things that made me feel anxious, contributed to panic, things along those lines. The other thing that I would say is that.

I, I stopped trying to show my value by my work. And what I mean by that is I still excelled in whatever I did. I still did my very best. I still took on more. I was still a high achiever. But I came in being authentic. It wasn't just about the work, it was then disclosing. By the way, employer, I'm gay by the way.

an sharing that I had mental [: 00:28:00

So that would be the, that would be the second thing and the last thing that I would say too is learning to walk in your truth and learning to. Be comfortable in your own skin. I used to think that was such a cliche and something that happened when you were 80 years old. But it happens through these little incremental things that happened to you over time.

And I remember thinking after I was on the other side of this experience. That I would never allow myself to feel ashamed of who I was and what I recognized going through all of that thing with the acquisition is I was trying to excel, trying to work harder, trying to be better, because I felt ashamed.

int. You don't value me as a [: 00:29:00

I'm not a commodity. I'm a human being and I bring all of this stuff with me. A lot of it good, some of it questionable some of it bad, but it's all of me as a human being. And that's what I took away from this experience that helped me move forward in my career.

Dr. Jim: So there's a couple things that I'm curious about. A lot of what we've been talking about has to do with being authentic in how you show up. That's easier said than done, especially when you think about the stage in your career where this happened. You're probably in your first major role as a people leader.

t respect, you're still very [: 00:30:00

So how do you show up with authenticity outside of the confines of just this output driven role or mindset that you're in at the time? Like how did you do that?

Ralph Kellogg: Through conversation, honestly. And so a couple of things that I would. Do. Once someone joined my team, obviously if I was interviewing someone or bringing someone onto my team I didn't start off with the fact of, oh, hey, I'm gay, or, Hey, I struggle with mental health issues. What I did was create an environment where I said to them it's okay to make mistakes.

It's okay to be collaborative. It's okay to have a moment where you need to step out and, collect yourself. It's okay to be a human being and bring that humanness to work. And oh, by the way let me share, an anecdote or a story of something that I've dealt with in my career, if it's applicable and if it helps you.

re and not hiding behind the [: 00:31:00

And I'm just like you in many respects in terms of dealing with doubts and security stresses. Things along those lines. So I'm here to walk the journey with you, walk the path with you and support you and not hold myself up as something better or different simply because I have the title of leader.

Dr. Jim: So I like that. There was another component of what you were talking about, which wa which had to do with people have to value you as a person first. It's not enough to be valued as an employee. Just based on your output, that doesn't really move the needle much. And part of what you said when you're talking about people have to value you as a person.

m still trying to figure out [: 00:32:00

Ralph Kellogg: I think one thing that I did early on, because I am unapologetically achievement oriented. I always have been. I'm in my mid fifties now and it's still as high as it was. As when I started my career. But I think what I do differently now as opposed to when I started my career is that I identified myself by what I did.

self by my career, by my job [: 00:33:00

By, through experiences that you go through understanding that you're gonna continue to grow, that you're going to continue to find out that something that you enjoyed at 30 is not gonna give you the same level of pleasure or a sense of accomplishment at 40 and learning incrementally that it really is.

derstand what they feel like [: 00:34:00

And so pretty soon before you know it, you're in a situation where, yes, you may have had the job that you wanted, but because you weren't really clear or didn't understand the boundaries that you wanted to set or the or the things that you didn't have an appetite to pursue, you've now got that.

With it as well. And so you find yourself settling. And sometimes you do settle for something. But part of being comfortable in your own skin is knowing that what you don't want and the boundaries that you need to set are just as important as what you wanna achieve. And that is through incremental, development all along in your life, and it's not being defined by your job it's being defined by what you want success to look like.

of those things mean. So I'm [: 00:35:00

'cause there's a lot there that, that could be could be talked about. And I'm sure that when this hits distribution a lot of people wanna follow up and continue the conversation with you. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you if they wanna continue the conversation?

Ralph Kellogg: Sure. So I am out on LinkedIn. I'm the only Ralph Kellogg in LinkedIn that I'm aware of. But I also work at Lutheran Family Services in Omaha, Nebraska. I'm the Chief Human Resources Officer here and only Ralph in the organization that I know of. And very. In the Omaha nonprofit community, so I'm very easy to locate.

Would welcome to continue having the conversation with anybody who's interested.

of people because there's a [: 00:36:00

One of the things that you mentioned that I feel is pretty important is regardless of where you're wired as an achiever, one of the key lessons that you need to understand is that what you do doesn't define who you are. And the reason why that's important is for you to navigate. Anything successfully.

You need to understand who you are and what you're about as a person and know that that's separate from anything that you accomplish. In the world of work, what happens is for a lot of people, they confuse accomplishment and success, and when you start doing that, you become tied to what you're doing instead of the person that you are working on becoming.

nd also not falling into the [: 00:37:00

The other thing that stands out in the conversation that we had is that when you're trying to define success, it doesn't mean the titles that you get, the degrees that you accomplish, the grades that you get the accolades that you receive. Those are all accomplishments. Think about what happens to a lot of people is that they confuse those. Attainment of accomplishments with success.

Success means being able to become the best possible person you can be, and continuing to grow from day to day, minute to minute, hour to hour, and so on.

't want to make at the time, [: 00:38:00

By the time it was already on your radar, the decisions were already made. So I think having that perspective and centering yourself on your worth as a person before worrying about what anybody else defines or how anybody else defines you is a really important lesson for everybody to take take home.

So for for those of you who've been listening to this conversation, we appreciate you hanging out. Make sure you leave us a review. And then tune in next time where we'll have another leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the stories of instances where they thought that they were gonna get fired, but those situations actually ended up helping them fast forward their careers.