M&A Integration Management
M&A integrations always require you to make sacrifices. It’s a time of tradeoffs. Compromises. Less than perfect solutions. So far as the people issues are concerned, it’s like watching a card game—some win, some lose, some break even.
You can care deeply—for everybody—but you can’t keep from damaging some careers.
Deep inside, managers know this is the case. Obviously, everybody can’t come out on top. But when it comes down to deciding how the two work forces will actually be integrated, the people calling the shots usually feel compelled to make a show of fairness. Instinctively, they want to come across as acting equitably, to be seen as even-handed in the way they assign people to the various positions.
This sort of behavior is fully understandable. But as it turns out, it’s not particularly good post-merger integration management.
In fact, if being “fair” to current employees is a top priority, merging is probably a bad plan. It’s sort of like wrestling with the decision of whether or not to declare war. How can you justify it if you’re unwilling to sacrifice some lives? Nobody ever said that mergers are the kinder and gentler way to corporate growth.
All too often the attempt to be fair and equitable in the integration process produces bad business decisions. You’ll see it at the very outset, where people are being tapped to serve on the various merger task forces and transition teams. Companies will bend over backward to get equal representation from both organizations. Balance is the big word. And it sells, because it suggests that people on both sides of the fence will have equal say-so on merger matters.
But should they? Usually not.
This approach emphasizes fairness at the expense of competence. And it’s a flawed methodology because it implies that in the future, equal treatment is going to be the norm ...
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