Today, we had a company-wide discussion and departmental breakout sessions to discuss what Wisdom is at Aquire, and what it means to our employees.  I was going to synthesize the message for this blog post, but the value is really in the direct quotes from the Aquire staff.  These are unrehearsed, rapid fire brainstorming snippets of thought.  I am so proud of them and impressed by them, I am sharing directly, without synthesis.  They are not all inclusive, but they are good ones.

“Wisdom feels synonymous to the passion for the job and customer.  Everybody lives this every day at Aquire!”

“Wisdom is knowing your gaps between your current state and your desired state.”

“Wisdom gives you the ability to make the right choice and not just a choice.”

“Wisdom is understanding the need behind the problem.”

“Wisdom is the culmination of life experiences, both positive and negative.  You should learn from both.”

“Wisdom goes back to action.  It is not what they know, it is how they act and what they do.  You can be smart and still do foolish things.”

“Don’t confuse knowledge with wisdom.  Knowledge is information.  Wisdom is the ability to know how to act upon the knowledge you have.”

“You can share your wisdom, only if the recipient already has the ability to receive and assimilate it.”

“Wisdom is looking at how the need and the solution will fit in the big picture, so that the right action is taken.”

“Wisdom is finding a solution that can solve a problem for many, not just fixing a symptom.”

“We must ask questions to put things into context.  Without context and experience, wisdom can’t be drawn upon.”

“Wisdom helps us, help people address their problems in a different way.”

“Applying collective wisdom allows better solutions.  It often requires a lot of information to build the wisdom around an issue.”

“Experience can be painful but it often leads to wisdom.”

“Based on wisdom we have established our recommendations. Those recommendations gathered from many sources become best practices.”

“One of the wise things that have been taught to me at Aquire is that we are not just here to sell you products.  We are here to solve your problems.”

“Wisdom is all about the journey; our department has 87 years of experience in within Aquire.  We want and are willing (drive) to participate and share WHAT we know.”

“Wisdom enables us to be our clients’ GPS.  We learn from the past in order to position our customers in the path of compelling events.”

Cheers,
Lois and Team

Carnival of HR has asked all contributors to develop a list of 7 in honor of September being the word for 7^th.  (Greek calendar had September as the 7^th month)

Seven ways to get included on the corporate succession plan.  There are many things that get evaluated by management and talent management teams when they are doing succession planning.  As I  observe succession plans I see the desired requirements for the planners.  However there are often gaps between the planners needs and the candidates focus on what they should be developing about themselves.  For many people these may be obvious, but for others I hope it will help them think about the things they do to develop and promote themselves.  There are, of course, specific skills required for different roles and career paths.  This list is more about the universal traits.

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Today is a big day for Aquire. For nearly 17 years we have operated as a innovative, customer centric, employee friendly entrepreneur owned company. We will continue to carry on all those attributes, except we will now become a wholly owned subsidiary of Peopleclick Authoria.

What does this mean to you / us?

We are now poised to spread our wings like never before. We will work closely with Peopleclick Authoria and will continue to operate as Aquire with the same staff and management as always to service the world with our workforce planning and analytics, org charting, organizational modeling, succession planning and the rest of the Aquire product portfolio.

Aquire’s growth story is powerful, not only from our ability to create an international market for our technology solutions, but also by creating some of the best jobs, filled with the best software people any customer has ever worked with! (I get these letters, I know the customers feel that way). Now we keep all the goodness and get a boost.

We will expand our market reach through the Peopleclick Authoria teams. We will continue to execute the technology visions of our co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Ross Melbourne. Your favorite tech support people are still here to answer your calls. The unique Aquire culture focusing on customers, innovation and the awesome sustainable employee lifestyle will continue. The elegant and powerful software from Aquire will still be solving people’s data integrity, merger integration, workforce analytics, succession planning and organization visibility problems.

Aquire has been approached many times in the past for merger or acquisition opportunities. The opportunities were never right for us or the market. When approached by Peopleclick Authoria we started exploring the great product synergies. We started talking to the people and researching the people and we knew we had found an impressive organization, with quality, intelligent people who have high integrity standards and a strong market position. The opportunity to work together with PCA while continuing with our product roadmap, our Aquire team and great customers, was an evolution that is just so right.

We are very excited about this new stage of our lives. You may have questions and I am happy to address them. Please send them my way. I look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Lois

Pay it Forward. Give and You Shall Receive. You get what you give.  There are many sayings tied around the rewards you receive when you give.  Here is my new favorite story gifted to me by a high school friend, Michelle Courtney Fout, that Facebook has brought back into my life.  Michelle attends the University of Washington in Seattle. The tree in the picture is a beautiful fixture on the campus, but the story of this tree is even more wonderful.

There was a tree in Cambridge Mass, where George Washington first took command of his troops in 1775.  A scion of that tree (a part of the tree that you use to start another tree growing) traveled to the Washington University campus and was planted there around the turn of the century.

The original tree in Cambridge died from disease and the favor of a scion from the Washington University Elm traveled back across the country and was planted in the original spot in Cambridge.  Then there is another turn in this reciprocal gift of life.  The Washington University tree was struck by lightning and once again a scion from Cambridge came back to Washington State to plant this beautiful joy of a tree. read more »