Mergers & Acquisitions

While no M&A is the same, I was wondering what people's experiences have been in activating change management. When do you recommend involving change management and when do you typically see change management engaged? If there is a gap, what strategies have you deployed to mitigate that gap?

From my end, I advocate for change management being involved during the due diligence phase because this can aid in better understanding the deal thesis, building communications and messaging to support the case for change, and to begin to understand the change impacts. It also allows for a strong voice on culture and the people rather than an often more singular focus on perceived financial and operational impact. 

I too often see change management becoming more engaged once the deal is announced and preparations for integration begin. This is often due to keeping it a tight circle of people involved during the due diligence due to the sensitive nature of the M&A. We've addressed these challenges by creating more of a defined playbook around M&A activity and getting the key leaders involved together to build this playbook. While we advocated for change management earlier in the process, we've provided guiding questions, discussions topics, and activities during the due diligence phase that can be managed by someone participating in this phase (often HR) and who then can take the outputs and context to change managers once they are activated. 

While imperfect, this does enable change managers to get preliminary information that can be used to shape key deliverables in the post-merger integration. What are your thoughts and experiences?

My answer reflects that I lead M&A integration at a medium-sized company (~2000 employees) that acquires even smaller companies (between 2 – 350 employees).  And we acquire about four companies a year.  Our model is to fully absorb the acquisition into ours to make reporting and maintenance of systems and processes scalable. 

Because few at the target are aware of the potential sale of their company, there is generally little capacity during the due diligence phase to inject change management pre-Close.  Our focus is on "should we buy this company and if so, for how much" as well as on risk identification and mitigation.  To this end, I review all information in the data room and contribute to the risk assessment that is presented to the Board. 

Once a Close date has been established, I meet with the leader(s) of the target to give them an overview of the integration process.  I feel that expectation setting is an important first step in change management.  I also set up a date and time to kick off integration and change management efforts with the to-be acquired leader(s) and their designees post-Close.  Ideally, this is held in person the second week after Close, when the acquisition's excitement of selling the company has started to wane.  Leaders are in a better state to absorb the information I have to share and contribute meaningfully to integration planning.

While no M&A is the same, I was wondering what people's experiences have been in activating change management. When do you recommend involving change management and when do you typically see change management engaged? If there is a gap, what strategies have you deployed to mitigate that gap?

From my end, I advocate for change management being involved during the due diligence phase because this can aid in better understanding the deal thesis, building communications and messaging to support the case for change, and to begin to understand the change impacts. It also allows for a strong voice on culture and the people rather than an often more singular focus on perceived financial and operational impact. 

I too often see change management becoming more engaged once the deal is announced and preparations for integration begin. This is often due to keeping it a tight circle of people involved during the due diligence due to the sensitive nature of the M&A. We've addressed these challenges by creating more of a defined playbook around M&A activity and getting the key leaders involved together to build this playbook. While we advocated for change management earlier in the process, we've provided guiding questions, discussions topics, and activities during the due diligence phase that can be managed by someone participating in this phase (often HR) and who then can take the outputs and context to change managers once they are activated. 

While imperfect, this does enable change managers to get preliminary information that can be used to shape key deliverables in the post-merger integration. What are your thoughts and experiences?