Organizational Development & Design / Business Psychology Consulting
Business Psychology Consulting
The fundamental challenge that an internal consultant faces when addressing post-merger integration is avoiding actions and behaviors that create winners and losers. When the culture of one organization unseats the culture of the other, the cost is lost synergy. Since synergy is a fundamental goal in a merger or acquisition, this is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Indeed, a merger is expected to improve innovation, market share, profitability, and stock prices (Hill & Weiner, 2008). However, more often than not, according to a study conducted by Booze-Allen (1999), mergers and acquisitions do not effectively achieve these objectives, may underperform peers in their industry, and actually lose shareholder value.
Post-merger integration must be "holistic, fluid, and well-executed" in order to be effective and result in solid organizational alignment. Merger and acquisition research points to common and resistant issues that are critical to successful post-merger integration and to opportunities to capitalize on merger synergy. A good model for accomplishing merger excellence addresses these issues and provides clear and effective steps for accomplishing a new shared vision (Hill & Weiner, 2008). Such a model is most likely to be implemented by a team of people who report to C-suite level executives, but it is imperative that the C-suite level executives communicate their endorsement of and continuous attention to merger implementation (Hill & Weiner, 2008).
Planning for post-merger integration actually needs to be started in the pre-merger stage. The post-merger processes are designed to ensure that communication occurs in a transparent and open manner, and that the integration teams consist...
The objective is to establish a new identity that will focus on and reinforce the core competencies of the combined companies, and will generate positive forward momentum that is also characterized by a collaborative and flexible consolidation of the two cultures (Hill & Weiner, 2008).
The primary steps of the post-integration phase include maintenance, renewal, and the formation of an integrated organization (Hill & Weiner, 2008). The maintenance step requires a focus on the direction established by the new identity of the merged corporations (Hill & Weiner, 2008). To accomplish maintenance, it is important to retain the high levels of energy that carried the merger implementation to this phase (Hill & Weiner, 2008). Maintaining high levels of energy is necessary because the renewal step will require concerted effort directed toward re-evaluation and re-creation, both of which are resource-consuming endeavors (Hill & Weiner, 2008). The final step in the post-integration implementation stage is often characterized by a redux of the processes used in the initial step in the merger processes: Integrated organization is achieved through "dreaming the dream of the new future together" (Hill & Weiner, 2008).
In order to combat disengagement and the fatigue of the long-haul merger process, cross-organizational networks and project teams must be established (Hill & Weiner, 2008). This newly configured structure is what enables a vibrant culture to develop by absorbing consistent processes, outlooks, missions, values, and goals (Hill & Weiner, 2008). An internal consultant may find that they are immersed in the effort of reforming the functional internal networks to meet the newly shared purpose (Hill & Weiner,…
