Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture

Chapter 36. The Offer

The look on the board members' faces was not good, and neither was the news. Some of the rumors turned out to be true, after all. Another company had made an offer to buy Soup, Inc., and the board was strongly considering it. Nancy didn't know what to say. She was in shock. Sure, she had always known it was a possibility, but she didn't expect it to happen, certainly not like this and not for such an inadequate amount of money. It was almost laughable that the board members would consider such an offer, but in their view, the numbers weren't climbing fast enough and they had very few options left.

"You're panicking," she boldly told the board.

"We're not panicking," a director replied. "We simply have no choice."

"Yes, you do have a choice," Nancy countered. "You can let me continue to turn this company around and not act out of desperation."

"We have every reason to be desperate," said another board member. "The numbers aren't showing the improvement we need to see."

"You're focusing on the wrong numbers," Nancy challenged. "We're moving in the right direction, and even though the sales numbers don't show it yet, they will."

"What makes you so sure?"

"We have a new measuring stick. We're focusing on engagement, and as you can see from these charts of other companies that have focused on engagement, you can correlate an increase in revenue, profit, and stock price to an increase in engagement scores."

Several of the board members lifted their heads for the first time. ...