The McKinsey article, When sustainability means more than ‘green’, is adapted from Adam Werback’s new book, Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto and  reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Press. Copyright © 2009.  Adam Werbach is the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, a former president of the Sierra Club (at age 23 in 1996), and the author of many works on sustainability, including the 1997 book Act Now, Apologize Later. I strongly encourage you to view this accompanying video interview, and then read the article.

True sustainability has four equal components:

• social, to address conditions that affect us all, including poverty, violence, injustice, education, public health, and labor and human rights
• economic, to help people and businesses meet their economic needs—for people: securing food, water, shelter, and creature comforts; for businesses: turning a profit
• environmental, to protect and restore the Earth—for example, by controlling climate change, preserving natural resources, and preventing waste
• cultural, to protect and value the diversity through which communities manifest their identity and cultivate traditions across generations

• inappropriate downsizing
• poor customer interface
• loss of key personnel
• lack of attention of the immediate needs
• “us” versus “them” rather than a New Identity
• Dualities instead of synergies
• poor timing of implementation – in fact in our view at 1-Focus – to little too late.

For the past couple of years I have been reading articles that be-cries the need to get Informatics involved early in the M&A discussion.  Lately, this has spread to other groups as well.  Besides the mention of the Sales Force, I saw a demand to consider procurement in SourceWire last week.  ”PROCUREMENT CAN BRIDGE THE CULTURAL GAP IN COMPANY MERGERS”  Well that’s a pretty big affirmation. I don’t mean to sound glib.  You can actually download the White Paper “Bridging the gap: How procurement can add value in a post-merger situation” here.

Procurement impacts across all areas of an organisation and it is here that opportunities can be found to unlock synergies on both sides of the merger.

But again I say – what doesn’t?  Instead of looking at each function separately and pointing out how critical each is the success of any merger, we need to think systemically.  All systems are connected and unless we find meaningful ways to collaborate and develop bottom-up processes of including ALL aspects of the organization, we will not be as successful as we can be.

So what really is the Integration Imperative? Well it isn’t just one thing. We have identified five critical factors but a good place to start would be to review our White Paper which can be read here.

Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions, it was announced today at a press conference that Christmas and Chanukah will merge. According to reliable industry sources, the deal has been in the works for about 1300 years, ever since the rise of the Muslim Empire.

Massive layoffs are expected, with lords a-leaping and maids a-milking being hardest hit. Under conditions of the agreement, the letters on the dreydl, currently in Hebrew, will be replaced by Latin, thus becoming unintelligible to a much wider audience. Also, instead of translating to “A great miracle happened there,” the message on the dreydl will be the more generic: “Miraculous stuff happens.”

The definition of the first category is particularly interesting: Drivers of Change

Bold drivers of change see opportunity where others see only danger and are not afraid to transform their company and even their industry. They are not afraid of change and they are decisive. A bold mergers and acquisitions transaction, for example, is one that has the potential to transform the company that undertakes it – allowing it to dominate its own sector or to move into new ones. 

I suspect that the example of a bold M&A is in part in response to one of the sponsor, ArcelorMittal.  At 1-Focus, we have been following ArcelorMittal.  We have written before about how impressed we have been in their approach and integration strategy.  It follow the process that we have developed and it took into account (either by plan or default) the five critical factors.  I was amused by the first part of the definition.  For the past 20 years, all I have heard about is that change is always with us.  ”Not afraid of change.” Interesting. . .  ”Decisive” . . . Interesting.  Draw your own observations.

There will also be a special Readers’ Award, which will be voted for by readers of the Financial Times and FT.com. A shortlist of five companies that have shown boldness, leadership and embraced innovation in the last twelve months have been selected.  They are:

• Nintendo
• Twitter
• American Apparel
• HCL Technologies
• Santander

Read about the reason for their selection. Alternatively, you can vote for your own company by emailingboldness@ft.com

The second is a rather interesting post “How Can Social Software Help Mergers And Acquisitions?”  Blogger Laurisa is a IBM Social Software Specialist, focusing on Lotus Connections and enterprise social software business value, use case scenarios, and adoption techniques.  Her post looks at these issues as she prepares to make a presentation on the subject at IBM.

I would be careful to make sure that we keep the distinctions about what these social software tools are and are not. Social Networks are not Communities but can facilitate the development of a communities of interest. Similarly, connectivity tools are not necessarily collaborative by design but again “may” be used in collaborative ventures.

I’m finding that there is a lot of confusion between the concept of social media and the concept of community. They are often used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. Social media can help foster communities but social media can be limited to allowing a conversation around content…which is *not* community.  

While I believe that this movement towards online networking both socially and for business will continue to grow, I do not know if it will help to make us more connected or in reality more isolated.  (Thus perpetuating what Faith Popcorn coined years back as cocooning.)  There is the false sense of creating meaningful relationships which I don’t think is true but I have great hope that these mediums have tremendous potential for bringing us into contact with people and ideas from around the world.

For more of the growth of social networking check out this press release from The Conference Board.

1) Cost savings may not be there 
2) Importance of softer side of integration 
3) Need a 100 day plan 
4) Expect some short term results early on for shareholders 

It takes a couple of minutes to get to the meat. The customer experience (maintaining relationships) and what happens to employees are specifics of the softer side.   Don’t underestimate the importance of the 100 day plan. That fits with one of our five critical issues – Timing.  At 1-Focus we believe that tangible benefits can be realized within the shorter term. Dino Mauricio ends his interview with revisiting the ever old issue of cultural considerations.

Consolidation in the banking industry continues at a rapid-fire pace, bringing with it an avalanche of post-merger integration challenges. The Deal newsweekly feature on Making megabanks examines how Bank of America Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. are all projecting significant synergies from their recent deals, but none have offered details on how those saving will be achieved. In this edition of Inside The Deal, Dino Mauricio, managing director of M&A integration for Getzler Henrich & Associates LLC, talks with The Deal’s Suzanne Stevens about the hurdles that lie ahead and just how long shareholders are willing to wait to see results.

1. The Academic: Maintaining the illusion that there were no losers in the merger merely sustains conflict.
2. The Executive: Embrace, not avoid, the strengths and differences of your global constituents, and turn them into a competitive advantage.
3. The Consultant: The key is to describe a new culture that draws on the best of the past organisations but shows a more attractive way forward.
4. The PR: His first task will be to ensure a collaborative leadership team. They must agree the corporate “story” for the company, what it is and where it is going, and articulate this vision to staff.

At 5 a.m. Sunday morning Miriam would get up long before her alarm and take a long walk around the lake. By 7 a.m. she would be dressed and ready to enjoy the rest of her day. She loved her free days. There was so much she wanted to do and did do on them. Granted, she didn’t have much time these days. She was swamped at work and putting in nearly around the clock hours, again. But, what time she had, she used to the fullest.

Come Monday morning, her zest for life would disappear. Getting out of bed took a great effort. She dreaded the day ahead. While she accomplished a lot in the course of the day and her energy returned once at her desk, the early mornings were awful. It seemed to take more energy for her to get ready and into work than it took to do the Due Diligence process she was in the midst of performing.

What was so odd for Miriam was that she used to love coming to work. Working on these projects used to be just as renewing and energizing (or even more so than her free time). She began to wonder what happened.

As she explored, she realized that she felt two issues at hand. One was hat she felt very disconnected from the merger process. She wanted to be more involved in the implementation, in enabling the change process and integration, not just the analysis beforehand.

Secondly, she had lost touch with her deeper motivation. She loved to experience success. Working on mergers used to be exciting. She felt that she was doing adding value to the company. As time passed and she could see the impact of the mergers, she began to question the value. Sure, there was a financial payback, but walking through the merged companies a year after the merger was often like walking through a robotics factory. People seemed to be disengaged, their spirits down and she was sure, that productivity, service and output were all effected as well.

The more she thought about what was happening, she realized that she had to align her work with her values somehow. She was sure that the merger strategy that she had undertaken was the best way for her company to grow. So, change was not about creating a new strategy, but rather, how she went about implementing the strategy. As Miriam looked at what she wanted to accomplish, her vision became clearer. She wanted to enable healthy mergers for both her company and the integration of employees.

Once she was clear about the outcome she wanted and felt her values realigned with her work, her energy and zest for work returned. She was ready to take action, involve her team, a cross-section of stakeholders and a small group of PMI consultants to design a new implementation strategy.

• When is your energy low or when do you feel resistant in starting a task? 
• How does the action at hand support your values? 
• Where is there conflict? 
• What changes do you need to make to realign your values and your work? 
• What can you do to enable this to happen? 
• Who can you involve in the process?