Mergers and Acquisitions: How to Create a Culture Ready for Transition

It’s no secret that integrating with another company has its difficulties. Whether merging with, being absorbed by, or acquiring another company, there are bound to be bumps in the road.

However, integrating with another company doesn’t have to be painful. By fostering your company’s ability to be adaptive, you can ensure a merger is heavy on cooperation and light on friction.

How to Make Sure Your Company Is Ready to Join Forces

Like most things in life, the best cure for the problems a merger can create is preparation. Knowing the major obstacles that come with integrating two companies and forming a corporate culture that can easily flex to adapt and overcome these challenges is a surefire way to make a transition as easy as possible.

The Culture Clash

Merging two corporate cultures together has the potential to be disastrous. Just ask someone who’s ever gone through the process. You can help avoid a clash by:

• Defining your culture. Understanding your company’s culture not only helps you find businesses with aligned corporate cultures, but it can also help you determine what type of merger your company may be ready for.

• Aligning your people. Make sure your employees know what the company stands for, and work with them to determine how best to fulfill that mission. Ensuring that your employees know what they are working toward will help them adapt during an integration. Having a clear understanding of the vision of the company will help employees maintain a positive and focused perspective during times of change.

• Trusting your gut. Even if you’ve prepared your team for the culture clash, people sometimes just don’t mix well with each other. If you notice a discordant tone in employee interactions, don’t ignore it. Reacting to a potential problem before it has the chance to fester can save a lot of time and difficulties in the future.

Employee Disengagement

Even if the cultures of two companies are aligned perfectly, the change and uncertainty that comes with the act of integration can cause employees to disengage from their work. Without proper preparation, this can lead to poor productivity and even a loss of top talent. During the transition, you should:

• Keep everyone in the loop. Even if confidentiality agreements prevent you from going into the details of a merger or acquisition with employees, make sure they know the big-picture goals behind it. Knowing what a company’s goals are and how a merger benefits them will prevent employees from losing perspective or feeling lost during the transition.

• Communicate responsibilities. Your employees need to know their specific roles and goals during, and after, the transition. It will help prevent the identity crisis that can come with big changes.

• Identify your top talent and keep them engaged. While it’s important to make sure all of your employees feel valuable, in the uncertain time of transition, it’s important to recognize the indispensable. If they are a major force in the company, they will also have the easiest job finding new places of employment — and will start looking if they feel underused in the new structure. Make sure they know how valuable they are so you can prevent the brain drain that sometimes occurs during bumpy mergers.

Losing Perspective

While mergers and acquisitions are done in the public eye, it’s often easy to forget the public when actually working on the integration of companies. You should:

• Keep the customer happy. With all the internal turmoil a merger can create, it’s easy to forget that the customer comes first. Don’t lose focus on providing a top-notch experience on the client side throughout the entire process.
• Reassure the shareholders. Understandably, your shareholders will be wary about any company merger. Make sure your shareholders are kept in the loop and know how it will also benefit them.

There are a lot of balls in the air when it comes to juggling the specifics of a merger. Even when you’re fully prepared, it can be a daunting task, and you should be ready to face any obstacle head-on. By building a company with a strong sense of identity and a culture ready for new ideas, a merger can become a seamless fusion of two companies with one future.

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