Executive Summary:

Mergers and Acquisitions often create winners and losers at both the corporate level and for individual staff. One culture unseats another. One employee outweighs another. Power struggles prevail. While policy and organizational decisions are made from above, the organization waits… it sits in limbo and disengages from its focus. Engaging across corporate cultures could be a near-fluid process of creating meaningful, value-driven focus and corporate loyalty from the onset.

In this white paper we will review the necessary steps to move through these challenges as well as highlight the three critical issues that are faced by the executive team right from the beginning: identity, duality and leading a top down – bottom up focus. A discordant or lax employee integration process can devalue the new company and its ability to perform and gain intended post merger value.

Leadership style, timing and a collaborative implementation approach fostering employee participation tip the scales between enabling engagement versus disengagement across cultures, thereby establishing the requisite new corporate identity, focus, loyalty and purpose. Even when done correctly, there is a tendency to quit the process just prior to reaching the end of the duality stage (around the nine month period) due to exhaustion and a sense of frustration. With an understanding of the change process, organizations can flow through this stage to integration.

To request a copy of the full article on [the human dimension of] mergers & acquisitions send a email to mergers@aweber.com