Like a lot of marriages "made in heaven" (but broken/enabled by Social Network (as in Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace..) reunions of onetime boyfriends or girlfriends), a distant friend of mine recently lost his bride to a former boyfriend from twenty years ago, that she renewed acquaintances with, on Facebook.
After going through the five classic stages of grief - Anger, Denial, Frustration, Acceptance and Healing - all in one week, my friend was faced with the inevitable division of assets: Where does one begin to start?
Well, he figured, divvying up the cash would be a good first step - after staunching further hemorrhage from the accounts and credit cards. Easy, huh? And after that was done he could go after the home, the mortgage, the cars, the furniture and the utensils.
The cash and liquid funds were easy - if only he could remember where he put his money and which accounts he had closed out. The credit cards were another matter. A number of them were still open in both their names and he was looking at a blank checkbook and months of free entertainment for his ex-wife and her lover at his expense if he did not shut them down. After frantically calling all the banks - he was hunting for phone numbers, contacts, bank timings, anything to speed up the process.
Two months later he was still not sure that he had them all but his anxiety attacks had turned into resignation and tiredness. He next took on the investments in brokerage accounts, mutual funds and the dreaded 401K and retirement savings accounts. He found that suspending them was easy but there were no distributions coming from those accounts. Four weeks later he was still wrestling with them.
In the meantime he had to deal with the photographs from twenty years of marriage and the joint memories of the children during happier times. It was time to make two piles: His and Hers. He painstakingly went through several thousands of photographs carefully separating them into either the Keep or Give up pile.
Of course the relentless pace of asset divestiture never slowed up. There was the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the knickknacks in the curio cabinet, the stamp collections, the collection of beer steins from his many business trips. Then there were the house payments, the mortgage, the equity in the house to deal with and the cost of repairs and modifications for a shrinking household.
In the midst of all this was also the emotional loss of losing his wife and child to, literally, a creation of the Internet. Maybe the marriage was already lost and Facebook simply delivered the coup de grace.
My friend does not want to remember how those crucial six months went, but somehow everything was completed and a divorce was granted. He is now on the prowl for the next spouse to fill his heart, his bed and the later years of his life on the planet.
Enterprises also go through marriages and divorces. They are called Mergers and Acquisitions and Divestitures. As much planned as opportunistic or as fait accompli, these events are seldom planned for. After the five classic stages of grief, comes the time for the enterprise to divide up the assets (Divestiture) or consolidate assets (M&A).
An enterprise architecture is essential to ease the transitioning that must follow. As my friend found out the hard way, those lists of accounts, credit cards, inventories of furniture and belongings, those catalogs of stamp collections and photographs are invaluable in performing the duties of transition.
After going through the five classic stages of grief - Anger, Denial, Frustration, Acceptance and Healing - all in one week, my friend was faced with the inevitable division of assets: Where does one begin to start?
Well, he figured, divvying up the cash would be a good first step - after staunching further hemorrhage from the accounts and credit cards. Easy, huh? And after that was done he could go after the home, the mortgage, the cars, the furniture and the utensils.
The cash and liquid funds were easy - if only he could remember where he put his money and which accounts he had closed out. The credit cards were another matter. A number of them were still open in both their names and he was looking at a blank checkbook and months of free entertainment for his ex-wife and her lover at his expense if he did not shut them down. After frantically calling all the banks - he was hunting for phone numbers, contacts, bank timings, anything to speed up the process.
Two months later he was still not sure that he had them all but his anxiety attacks had turned into resignation and tiredness. He next took on the investments in brokerage accounts, mutual funds and the dreaded 401K and retirement savings accounts. He found that suspending them was easy but there were no distributions coming from those accounts. Four weeks later he was still wrestling with them.
In the meantime he had to deal with the photographs from twenty years of marriage and the joint memories of the children during happier times. It was time to make two piles: His and Hers. He painstakingly went through several thousands of photographs carefully separating them into either the Keep or Give up pile.
Of course the relentless pace of asset divestiture never slowed up. There was the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the knickknacks in the curio cabinet, the stamp collections, the collection of beer steins from his many business trips. Then there were the house payments, the mortgage, the equity in the house to deal with and the cost of repairs and modifications for a shrinking household.
In the midst of all this was also the emotional loss of losing his wife and child to, literally, a creation of the Internet. Maybe the marriage was already lost and Facebook simply delivered the coup de grace.
My friend does not want to remember how those crucial six months went, but somehow everything was completed and a divorce was granted. He is now on the prowl for the next spouse to fill his heart, his bed and the later years of his life on the planet.
Enterprises also go through marriages and divorces. They are called Mergers and Acquisitions and Divestitures. As much planned as opportunistic or as fait accompli, these events are seldom planned for. After the five classic stages of grief, comes the time for the enterprise to divide up the assets (Divestiture) or consolidate assets (M&A).
An enterprise architecture is essential to ease the transitioning that must follow. As my friend found out the hard way, those lists of accounts, credit cards, inventories of furniture and belongings, those catalogs of stamp collections and photographs are invaluable in performing the duties of transition.
Get on the ball. Start building and maintaining your enterprise architectures!
1 comment:
excellent comparison!
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