The Southwest Airlines/AirTran Merger: Fast Growth and Culture Change

What if—as an individual—your genetic code suddenly changed by, say, 23%?

How different a person would you be?  If the change happened overnight, would you even recognize yourself the next morning?  What would it feel like…how would you behave?

That’s what is about to happen to Southwest Airlines.  If the proposed merger with AirTran goes through, Southwest’s cultural DNA will be reconstituted as the company absorbs over 8,000 new employees.  Immediately when the deal closes, nearly one out of every four people in Southwest’s work force will be from a firm with a different genetic code.

Can anyone doubt that the AirTran immigrants will leave their mark on the land of Southwest?

Of course, the cultural impact will be profoundly greater for AirTran personnel.  Their cultural heritage will be dissolving into a gene pool that’s 400% larger, so what will that leave of AirTran’s identity?

Circumstances like these cause people to behave in peculiar and problematic ways.  But most mergers proceed without a well-conceived strategy for culture integration. 

In a recent nationwide study conducted by PRITCHETT, only 21% of the executives surveyed said their companies conduct a formal program specifically designed to facilitate culture integration or culture change when they acquire/merge other firms. 

Nevertheless, when people talk about M&A efforts that go bad, more than anything else they blame culture.