10 Key Guidelines

for Post-Merger Integration Teams

1. Protect Confidentiality

  • Don’t leave confidential documents in meeting rooms, on copiers, or open on your desk.
  • Be extremely careful about forwarding emails.

2. Respect Each Other and the Process

  • Realize that there are different “realities” and respect different perspectives.
  • Follow a well-defined integration process.
  • Stay on schedule.

3. Manage Expectations

  • Be realistic about the challenge.
  • Delegate to your direct reports.
  • Encourage ruthless prioritization.

4. Adopt and Go

  • Understand how you do it and how they do it.
  • Don’t waste time arguing about whose way is the best way.
  • Pick a way that will be least disruptive…and go!

5. Don’t Roll Over and Play Dead

  • Your ideas matter.
  • Surface genuinely important issues.
  • Pick your battles carefully.

6. Add Positive Energy to the Process

  • Transition is all about energy management.
  • When your energy is depleted, you’re responsible for replenishing it.
  • Without energy, the transition process grinds to a halt.

7. Learn to Survive in No-Man’s Land

  • You won’t fit well in either the present or the future.
  • The old way won’t feel right, but the new way won’t work yet.
  • Find ways to stay connected.

8. Act Like a Consultant

  • Get on the balcony to look at issues.
  • Don’t take positions; discuss interests.

9. Consider it a "Learning Laboratory"

  • Consciously select areas where you want to personally develop.
  • Without specific goals you’ll just survive, not thrive.
  • Develop new skills.

10. Understand the Journey

  • Psychological shockwaves: Fear, weakened trust, self-preservation.
  • Three phases of transition: Endings, exploration, new beginnings.
  • Staggered experiences for executives and rank-and-file.

Related Presentations