Mergers and Acquisitions

According to Forbes, 83% of Mergers fail. Yikes!

Amongst the primary reasons stated for this high failure rate are

• the failure to fully integrate the businesses (i.e. finding synergies), and also
• the failure to integrate the cultures.

Teamspect provides an excellent platform to help overcome these pitfalls of mergers and acquisitions. Teamspect campaigns can be used to systematically bring people together across the business boundaries, and facilitate the building of empathy and trust, and blending of culture.

Any merger-related integration efforts bring several very concrete problems, that need to be recognized and addressed, the top being:

• inferiority complex felt in one or both teams
• physical separation of the teams
• uncertainty during a lengthy process of integrating the organizations
• inevitable layoffs and departures

Teamwork Across the New Team

Lack of knowing the new people and new groups, and lack of understanding their culture leads to reduced empathy, and eventually conflicts.

Solutions

Unlike regular team engagement efforts, Teamspect campaigns would be set-up to:

1. focus on establishing connections between people within work groups, across the merge boundaries
2. focus on establishing connections between groups that are interacting across the merge boundaries
3. use feedback mechanisms specialized to measure the culture integration effects
4. events and feedback to identify unifying aspects, interests and hobbies, common things in the past, etc

Inferiority Complex

Trust and teamwork is severely impacted both vertically and horizontally if either group, or even both groups, feel marginalized, mistreated, or less important.

Solutions

In addition to horizontal connectedness solutions above, Teamspect identifies and suggests:

1. training and reminders for managers taking over acquired groups
2. events and campaigns focused on connecting those managers with the acquired groups
3. use feedback mechanisms specialized to measure the culture integration effects

Physical Separation of New Team

After M&A, the organization will not magically converge into the same office building. The two organizations tasked with becoming a cohesive team may be across the country which brings challenges, especially with communication and trust.

Solutions

The best results in building empathy, trust and teamwork are via face-to-face interactions. When the team is physically separated, these face-to-face interactions are rare. Teamspect provides the following solutions:

1. replace co-located events with creative remote events,
   • using best possible technology such as personal video calls, or
   • suggest creative additions to regular remote interactions
2. suggest bringing people to different locations (and not only to headquarters) for getting better chances to meet, work together in person, and get better feel for the locations
3. measure the effects of the efforts above, identify less connected locations and individuals, and include this knowledge in future event proposals

Adjusting to New Structure

The newly merged organization may decide on a new CEO and board quickly, but what takes time is restructuring the rest of the organization. Deciding what departments stay, merge with others, and how the departments interact is a long process that does not settle down for some time. Guiding employees through the uncertainty is imperative to success.

Solutions

These problems cannot be addressed without having the executive team, all the way up to the CEO, being involved, pro-active and visible. The best help from Teamspect comes via reminders for the executives to communicate regularly the status of the transformation, via scheduling presentations (company-wide) and in-person “Executive Talks” (small-group sessions).

Layoffs and Departures

Layoffs are a necessary evil during M&A, causing heavy cultural damage and trust problems. People will see their close coworkers being let go for “no reason” which leads to trust issues, and doubts whether to stay with the company. Communicating with employees and being honest offers hope of mitigating the consequences of layoffs and departures.

Solutions

Same as the New Structure above, it is extremely critical for executives and managers to lead the team through the times of layoffs and departures. Teamspect provides support to managers via:

1. reminders to provide frequent, regular and honest updates on plans and vision
2. adjust the campaigns to focus on building empathy within the business units to reinforce the feel of support from closest coworkers
3. feedback and measurements focused on job safety, satisfaction and alignment with company mission

Final Notes

It is too easy to lose track of all the people involved in the merger, from the executives at the top, to all the hard workers down the chain. Teamspect campaigns can be used to accomplish a number of objectives, including:

• Building trust amongst the new team members across company boundaries
• Identifying commonalities in culture and finding the synergies
• Achieving alignment of the new corporate goals across the entire workforce
• Ideation of new initiatives with buy-in across the company