Mergers & Acquisitions

Hey M&A Community,

If you are like me, you are using the time between Christmas and New Year's to reflect on how your year went personally and professionally.  Things that went well, things that didn't, things you learned, and things you would like to change or add to your leadership approach in 2024.

I ran across this McKinsey article a about a month ago titled The Irrational Side of Change.  (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-irrational-side-of-change-management?cid=other-eml-ofl-mip-mck&hlkid=6bce4ee605f6462cabf5234f07bb929a&hctky=13197172&hdpid=a41d4b78-5109-41a8-9c84-3742a088d357)

I specifically flagged the article to remind myself to ponder its conclusions during this reflective time.  

One of the major findings put forth in the article is captured in this quote.

"What the leader cares about (and typically bases at least 80 percent of his or her message to others on) does not tap into roughly 80 percent of the workforce's primary motivators for putting extra energy into the change program."

I am curious about the communities thoughts after you read the article.

Do you agree or disagree?

Do you have examples of where this played out?

Will this impact how your think about M&A integration work in the future?

Happy New Year and may 2024 be filled with health, happiness and success for all. 

------------------------------
Anthony Casablanca
Co-Founder and President
GriefLeaders LLC
"Changing How Change is Implemented"
www.griefleaders.com
]
------------------------------

Hi Anthony! I'll react to the references to 80%. Let me/us know if you wanted a zoomed-out reaction to the article in general.

I had to read the sentence numerous times before I could make enough sense of it to respond. My translation ...

• "What the leader cares about" = the leader sets certain expectations.
• "extra energy" = the workforce meets certain expectations.
• Efficiency score (0-100%) = 20% (poor, high waste/leakage)
• In prose ... all of the following are poor: articulation, listening, motivating, and monitoring of expectations.

Do you think my translation is close?

I can't answer your exact question of whether I agree or disagree with these 80% values. My reaction is that, as cryptic as those metrics are, they don't surprise me. This fits the cliche (and Paul Newman movie quote), "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Do I have examples of inefficient "Expectation Setting Factories?" Of course! I've reported to countless senior employees who surrender to -- or even embrace -- VUCA.

The strongest, good-faith leaders who are fully "innovation literate" ...

• know what expectations to set
• use language that minimizes ambiguity of the expectations
• enforce tools that monitor, manage, and mentor the workforce to meet those expectations.

Two vital tools include status reports (individual and workstream) and traceability matrices.

I acknowledge you didn't ask for solutions, but I don't know where else to take such a hazy quotation. If the authors are so confident in citing two percentages (both 80%), could someone ask them for their Venn diagram? 🙂

------------------------------
Robert Snyder
------------------------------

Robert,

Sorry for the delay in my response.  I caught a bit of whatever the crud is that is going around.

First, thank you for detailed and thoughtful response.  These communities work best when people actively engage instead of passively read the posts.

I do agree with the Paul Newman quote.  I also believe the specific section I referenced with the 80% statistic does highlight a failure to communicate.  However, I think the issue is much deeper than a poor choice of words, ambiguous messages, or lack of clarity.  I believe, and have experienced, where the change or M&A messages being communicated are very clear, but are only based on the company's or executive team's perspective.  In these situations, no matter how clear and concise, the messages fail to resonate with people.  In fact, they may even inadvertently convey a lack of caring and total disregard for people.

When changes are announced or companies are acquired, people really could care less about shareholder value, improving competitiveness, or fixing what is wrong to improve productivity.  What they care is is, how will this change will impact me.  How will I fit in the new process?  Will anyone be losing their jobs?  How does this change and they way the company is treating us fit my values?  In the case of an acquisition, how will the new company impact our culture?  Will we lose our identity as a company and as individuals?

I was installed as president of global operating company to help close the gaps / resistance because of the failure of the leaders in the new parent company to recognize what they cared about and what the people, including the senior leaders of the acquired company, cared about were totally different.

Similarly, I had the same experience with the two Lean transformations I was assigned to implement during my career.  Once the messaging addressed what people cared about was when the transformations took hold.

Happy New Year!

------------------------------
Anthony Casablanca
Co-Founder and President
GriefLeaders LLC
"Changing How Change is Implemented"
www.griefleaders.com
]
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 2023-12-29 19:14
From: Robert Snyder
Subject: YIKES! 80% Of What You Care About Is Irrelevant To Your People

Hi Anthony! I'll react to the references to 80%. Let me/us know if you wanted a zoomed-out reaction to the article in general.

I had to read the sentence numerous times before I could make enough sense of it to respond. My translation ...

• "What the leader cares about" = the leader sets certain expectations.
• "extra energy" = the workforce meets certain expectations.
• Efficiency score (0-100%) = 20% (poor, high waste/leakage)
• In prose ... all of the following are poor: articulation, listening, motivating, and monitoring of expectations.

Do you think my translation is close?

I can't answer your exact question of whether I agree or disagree with these 80% values. My reaction is that, as cryptic as those metrics are, they don't surprise me. This fits the cliche (and Paul Newman movie quote), "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Do I have examples of inefficient "Expectation Setting Factories?" Of course! I've reported to countless senior employees who surrender to -- or even embrace -- VUCA.

The strongest, good-faith leaders who are fully "innovation literate" ...

• know what expectations to set
• use language that minimizes ambiguity of the expectations
• enforce tools that monitor, manage, and mentor the workforce to meet those expectations.

Two vital tools include status reports (individual and workstream) and traceability matrices.

I acknowledge you didn't ask for solutions, but I don't know where else to take such a hazy quotation. If the authors are so confident in citing two percentages (both 80%), could someone ask them for their Venn diagram? 🙂

------------------------------
Robert Snyder
------------------------------

Anthony,

Thanks for sharing the article, and I would bet that percentage is even higher in the M&A space. Likely, the decision to merge or acquire has already been made largely at the top of the house with little stakeholder insight due to the confidential nature of M&A. So the question then becomes how do we has change practitioners prepare our leaders and employees to embrace the change of a new company, software, people, culture in our house? And how do we prepare the new company to feel more welcome based on the same criteria?

Ideally, CM is brought in early and often! We have the opportunity to research and meet with New Co, while already displaying a good sense of what is a match and what is a potential gap based on our knowledge of Current Co. - then immediately start building those bridges from both sides (and thereby trust).  If that's not the case, our job becomes much harder while production, reputation, and employee engagement could suffer. 

Haven't had this experience yet, but curious how others may have approached this if they were brought in early or late. What worked or what was learned? 

------------------------------
Dawn Feltner
------------------------------

Yes Dawn. I like how you said "ideally". That's the operative word.

------------------------------
angela
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 2024-01-03 15:33
From: Dawn Feltner
Subject: YIKES! 80% Of What You Care About Is Irrelevant To Your People

Anthony,

Thanks for sharing the article, and I would bet that percentage is even higher in the M&A space. Likely, the decision to merge or acquire has already been made largely at the top of the house with little stakeholder insight due to the confidential nature of M&A. So the question then becomes how do we has change practitioners prepare our leaders and employees to embrace the change of a new company, software, people, culture in our house? And how do we prepare the new company to feel more welcome based on the same criteria?

Ideally, CM is brought in early and often! We have the opportunity to research and meet with New Co, while already displaying a good sense of what is a match and what is a potential gap based on our knowledge of Current Co. - then immediately start building those bridges from both sides (and thereby trust).  If that's not the case, our job becomes much harder while production, reputation, and employee engagement could suffer. 

Haven't had this experience yet, but curious how others may have approached this if they were brought in early or late. What worked or what was learned? 

------------------------------
Dawn Feltner
------------------------------

Dawn,

Great comments and questions.  Thanks for responding.

I apologize for the delay in replying.  I have read your message several times and wanted to provide a thoughtful rather than a quick response.

I have witnessed several acquisitions from a distance and then was asked to lead an acquired company a year after the acquisition when things were not going well culturally.

Here is what I have witnessed.

We make the same mistake with an acquisition as we do with a newly hired experienced employee.  We discount and devalue their experience because it didn't come from "our company."  As a result, we ignore the very attributes that attracted us to the target company and try to remake them into the parent company.  This only serves to heighten the already emotional state of those in the acquired company and makes the change efforts even more fragile and makes failure, or at least under-performance a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

Integrating a new company should mean not only integrating processes and culture but also integrating their history and value into the new story. That is what the folks in the acquired company want. 

When the CEO of my company asked me to lead the acquired company mentioned above, he said, "I need someone with a heart to lead this effort."  What he meant was, I need someone who is going to make them feel valued as we integrate.  Twelve months later our integration was being touted as the example of how to integrate a company.  We were out performing all the models, had begun a lean transformation, were plotting a course to double the size of the company and cut lead times in half.  All things that required the long standing employees to take a hard look at how they had been doing business previously.  Why were we able to accomplish this?  Not because we flawlessly integrated the processes.  Far from it.  What we integrated was their story, their history, and their value.

I can still remember the moment this integration occurred.  I was about 90 days into my new leadership role and I was conducting a town hall meeting.  I don't remember the question that was asked but my response was, "It has become clear to me that his is a great company.  The parent acquired us because of who we are and what we do.  We are not going to stop being who we are.  We will comply with what our parent company wants but we will not conform.  We will continue to be who we are."  I had a line of people waiting to talk to me after the session.  The common theme of the comments were, "we needed to hear that and we are on board."

I hope this rant helps. 

------------------------------
Anthony Casablanca
Co-Founder and President
GriefLeaders LLC
"Changing How Change is Implemented"
www.griefleaders.com
]
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 2024-01-03 15:33
From: Dawn Feltner
Subject: YIKES! 80% Of What You Care About Is Irrelevant To Your People

Anthony,

Thanks for sharing the article, and I would bet that percentage is even higher in the M&A space. Likely, the decision to merge or acquire has already been made largely at the top of the house with little stakeholder insight due to the confidential nature of M&A. So the question then becomes how do we has change practitioners prepare our leaders and employees to embrace the change of a new company, software, people, culture in our house? And how do we prepare the new company to feel more welcome based on the same criteria?

Ideally, CM is brought in early and often! We have the opportunity to research and meet with New Co, while already displaying a good sense of what is a match and what is a potential gap based on our knowledge of Current Co. - then immediately start building those bridges from both sides (and thereby trust).  If that's not the case, our job becomes much harder while production, reputation, and employee engagement could suffer. 

Haven't had this experience yet, but curious how others may have approached this if they were brought in early or late. What worked or what was learned? 

------------------------------
Dawn Feltner
------------------------------

Appreciate the thoughtful response Anthony! There's a consistent theme of Change Management being brought in late to the party. However, you obviously handled it with empathy and grace - thereby turning things around and creating a best practice in the process - kudos! 

------------------------------
Dawn Feltner
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 2024-01-15 09:12
From: Anthony Casablanca
Subject: YIKES! 80% Of What You Care About Is Irrelevant To Your People

Dawn,

Great comments and questions.  Thanks for responding.

I apologize for the delay in replying.  I have read your message several times and wanted to provide a thoughtful rather than a quick response.

I have witnessed several acquisitions from a distance and then was asked to lead an acquired company a year after the acquisition when things were not going well culturally.

Here is what I have witnessed.

We make the same mistake with an acquisition as we do with a newly hired experienced employee.  We discount and devalue their experience because it didn't come from "our company."  As a result, we ignore the very attributes that attracted us to the target company and try to remake them into the parent company.  This only serves to heighten the already emotional state of those in the acquired company and makes the change efforts even more fragile and makes failure, or at least under-performance a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

Integrating a new company should mean not only integrating processes and culture but also integrating their history and value into the new story. That is what the folks in the acquired company want. 

When the CEO of my company asked me to lead the acquired company mentioned above, he said, "I need someone with a heart to lead this effort."  What he meant was, I need someone who is going to make them feel valued as we integrate.  Twelve months later our integration was being touted as the example of how to integrate a company.  We were out performing all the models, had begun a lean transformation, were plotting a course to double the size of the company and cut lead times in half.  All things that required the long standing employees to take a hard look at how they had been doing business previously.  Why were we able to accomplish this?  Not because we flawlessly integrated the processes.  Far from it.  What we integrated was their story, their history, and their value.

I can still remember the moment this integration occurred.  I was about 90 days into my new leadership role and I was conducting a town hall meeting.  I don't remember the question that was asked but my response was, "It has become clear to me that his is a great company.  The parent acquired us because of who we are and what we do.  We are not going to stop being who we are.  We will comply with what our parent company wants but we will not conform.  We will continue to be who we are."  I had a line of people waiting to talk to me after the session.  The common theme of the comments were, "we needed to hear that and we are on board."

I hope this rant helps. 

------------------------------
Anthony Casablanca
Co-Founder and President
GriefLeaders LLC
"Changing How Change is Implemented"
www.griefleaders.com
]
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 2024-01-03 15:33
From: Dawn Feltner
Subject: YIKES! 80% Of What You Care About Is Irrelevant To Your People

Anthony,

Thanks for sharing the article, and I would bet that percentage is even higher in the M&A space. Likely, the decision to merge or acquire has already been made largely at the top of the house with little stakeholder insight due to the confidential nature of M&A. So the question then becomes how do we has change practitioners prepare our leaders and employees to embrace the change of a new company, software, people, culture in our house? And how do we prepare the new company to feel more welcome based on the same criteria?

Ideally, CM is brought in early and often! We have the opportunity to research and meet with New Co, while already displaying a good sense of what is a match and what is a potential gap based on our knowledge of Current Co. - then immediately start building those bridges from both sides (and thereby trust).  If that's not the case, our job becomes much harder while production, reputation, and employee engagement could suffer. 

Haven't had this experience yet, but curious how others may have approached this if they were brought in early or late. What worked or what was learned? 

------------------------------
Dawn Feltner