Video - mergers and acquisitions.
Many of us have been involved in mergers or acquisitions.
The Orange and T-Mobile merger recently blended two very different management and cultural styles. Google and Motorola will be an interesting blend of ideology.
Look at any merger and the story is the same.
In nearly every case, it’s not only the language that can be different, a new style of culture can catch people out.
For example, there can be differences around contribution and deliverables, HR differences, performance and measurement, standards and KPI’s and also around meetings protocol. At Mercury, if anyone was more than 10 minutes late, they would not be allowed to even join the meeting.
Then, lateness, smoking, coffee & lunch breaks, policy around visits to the pub all need to be explained rather than having staff finding out by accident. (The merger of Compaq and DEC never really happened at all. Compaq’s senior management all left and it was a culture victory for DEC by default!)
Most staff are very loyal to their own brand. Where competitors merge, there needs to be a lot of comparing and blending by everyone in order to achieve the requisite blend of hearts and minds. It is actually a time of nervousness and staff often take their eye off the ball and forget that the show must go on!
Customers, too, need to feel that business will carry on uninterrupted. They also want to hear the company talking with ‘one voice’. A regular video log explaining how the merger is developing calms any nervousness with large customers, suppliers, partners and staff. Well-delivered video breeds confidence; it can also help to define different house styles and cultural differences to all interested parties.
We will be happy to demonstrate this model to you.
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