Step 5: Develop Post Merger Integration Risk Management Plan

By Price Pritchett

Employees find lots to gripe about when they’re being acquired and merged.  Looking back across my three decades of consulting on M&A, though, one complaint stands out clearly as people’s #1 gripe.

It goes like this: “Why don’t they move faster?  Why is the integration taking so long?”

I honestly cannot think of a single client I've worked with where the integration proceeded too rapidly to suit people in general. Fast they can live with, but across the board, people hate slow.

Merger integration is sort of like taking your family on a road trip, where the kids are hounding you constantly with the question, “Are we there yet?”

And the longer the drive, the more the mood sours. People want you to wrap it up!  They’re …
 

Nobody in their right mind expects merger integration to be a trouble-free process. Simply put, combining organizations is a scratchy drill. In my 30+ years of experience I’ve never witnessed a zero-defects integration and, in fact, trying to get it perfect can be one of the biggest mistakes of all.

So, the question is, how can you discern the “normal” problems from the warning signs that signal major risk? What should scare you the most?

Our checklist covers the top ten danger signs that indicate serious trouble. Take a hard look at your merger and make a check mark by the critical distress signals that are surfacing in your organization.

Keep in mind, these problems feed on one another. And as the saying goes, “Disaster accelerates.” Turning around a troubled integration gets tough, and any three check marks …

The journey from “deal announcement” to “integration complete” is a hazardous trip. You expect problems. But the most treacherous terrain often takes executives by surprise.

Let’s divide the merging process into three phases to illustrate the integration pathway:

Phase 1 begins when the deal closes and typically runs through the first two or three months of integration. Sometimes the time frame is conceived as Day 1 through the first 100 days. This period is intense, with many decisions and critical actions as the consolidation process is mobilized. People are scrambling, on high alert. Things are off-balance but moving fast. Uncertainty spikes. You might guess this to be the riskiest time, but bigger challenges lie ahead. 

Phase 2 is the shakiest point in the integration process, the lowest point in Death Valley, and typically top management doesn’t see it coming ...
 

While you wrestle with that question for a minute, think about how much money is at stake. Then consider the number of people in the two companies ... all the careers that are involved ... the lives you’re playing with here. You might also reflect on how all the other stakeholders are watching intently—your customers, suppliers, bankers, the public who owns your stock. And, of course, the press may be hanging around just aching for a hot story about how things are going wrong. Your competition would love to make a field day out of this.

Obviously there is a lot on the line here. The next few months aren’t going to be a day at the beach.

It’s not enough to be busy—you have to be busy doing the right things. The situation is very unforgiving ...
 

We need a more colorful classification system for how companies go about the merger integration process. You know, a new nomenclature. So I sat down and did some reflection.

Going through my memory bank, I pulled up some of the most common patterns I’ve seen as companies are acquired and merged. Since so many deals go bad due to a mangled integration, I decided to start by categorizing the dysfunctional approaches.

Here, in no particular order, are my top four.

“Hair on Fire”

This is a fire-fighting approach to merger integration where management, reacting to the tyranny of the urgent, lurches from crisis to crisis. For lack of planning and discipline, impulse rules … 
 

There’s an old line that says, “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.” Adapting that notion to the world of M&A, I’d say, “If Sales ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.”

You can screw up the integration process in many ways and still have a successful merger, but the deal fails if you foul up at merging the sales forces.

Sales brings money in the door . . . or not. And that’s why Sales integration is the make-or-break issue.

Mergers are always based on a financial logic, and that’s how they’re ultimately graded—not on a “morale” logic, or “culture compatibility” quotient, or other random metrics. In the final analysis, the results that count are about money. If your sales people are churning out killer results, that alone can protect the deal from becoming a victim of most integration sins …

The following missteps occur even in well-run companies with highly capable executives at the helm:

1. Lack of a clearly defined Integration Manager. 

Make sure one person is put in charge of the integration effort. Assigning individual accountability and responsibility is one of the best ways to make sure things get done. Some organizations choose one person from each organization to serve as co-leaders in the process. While this may seem equitable, it can lead to confusion as to who has formal sign-off over a given task or activity, or who is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the transition effort. Generally, it’s a good idea to make sure that individuals from both organizations are present on the team, but it works best when only one person is in charge...

People often overrate themselves, not in rocket science, but in other areas of their lives more familiar to them. For example:

• Some 90% of Americans rate their driving skills as above average.
• About the same percentage of people think they're more popular or more likely to succeed than the average person.
• In one study, ¼ of the respondents rated themselves in the top one percent in terms of leadership ability.

Obviously, a lot of those people are seriously wrong.

The same level of misguided beliefs shows up when corporate executives rate their skills at merger integration. I’ve watched it for three decades now, and the pattern stays the same.

In his book, Everything is Obvious (Once You Know the Answer), Duncan Watts writes, “The sad fact is that we’re actually much better at planning the flight path of an interplanetary rocket than we are at managing the economy, merging two corporations (my italics), or even predicting how many copies of a book will sell.”

He goes on to point out that rocket science seems hard, while problems having to do with people seem like they ought to be just a matter of common sense. Trouble is, merging people and cultures confronts us with a very different kind of ...

The shockwaves from a merger can badly disrupt day-to-day operations. The tremors start when employees worry about how they’ll be affected by the deal, fret over a myriad of integration problems, and commonly waste time waiting for answers or just being confused about how to proceed with their work. Overall, business suffers.