Publications & Resources
May/June 2008
Focus: Mergers & Acquisitions
The Acquisition from Hell: The Three Biggest Profit-Eroding Mistakes You Make When Merging
By Roxanne Emmerich, CSP, CMC
“But the acquisition sounded like a good idea at the time.”
You’ve heard this before. You've heard it from the bank that acquires an insurance agency and sells it four years later at a huge loss. You've heard it two years after the acquisition of a new location when the entire workforce is confused and bitter. You've seen it a decade later when the investment center and the bank still aren’t benefiting from the fact that the other exists.
It's then that you start to assess the real cost of the acquisition—the seemingly stolen profits factored into the investment projections.
But the real profit thief is the lack of a culture that successfully engages employees and the resulting customer exodus.
Employee disengagement due to mergers or acquisitions is a huge profit black hole! Mergers create the “them” – those out-of-touch execs at the main office, those people at the new office, and those people who don’t understand how we’ve always done things. And the more “they” get blamed, the more divisive the team becomes.
Let’s get honest. This profit-erosion bomb is no accident. Unless you put merging the cultures top and center and know what you’re doing to get your people engaged, you can count on a profit-possibility blood bath.
So what are the four biggest mistakes leadership teams make when merging cultures?
“Take a Pill" Program:
We’re a “take a pill” society – if you have a problem, take a pill. But often, the pill can be an interruption to the problem – rarely fixing it and usually causing new problems.
Merging cultures cannot be solved by the pill of a few trips to the new offices or a welcome letter. It’s not the CRM conversion. To misquote a presidential candidate of the past, “It’s the people, stupid.”
Merging cultures is about getting a whole group of people to respect each other and agree to a code of honor about how to treat each other and how to treat customers. It’s about getting people to “play nice.”
Successful merging requires selling a vision of going from good to great together. It takes the persuasive abilities of a Martin Luther King and a John F. Kennedy to entice an entire team to a vision of greatness that inspires people to bring all their hearts, souls, and talents to work every day.
Rather than a pill, it's an ongoing process that starts before the merger and goes on for years.
No Cathartic Event of Letting Go of the Old
Events mark significant passages. Marriages start with a wedding. Funerals
symbolize the end of life. A merger needs a cathartic event in order to dismiss
fears and engage spirits. Don’t even think of bringing a PowerPoint
presentation; it must be about engaging the spirit.
“Adult Day Care” Acceptance
Ever get a speeding ticket? I have, but only when I was…well…speeding.
Hmmm…is there learning to be had here?
No speeding…no ticket?
The problem in most workplaces is that no road signs are posted. There may
be no “code of honor” to identify expectations. The result is a mayhem that
resembles adult day care where dysfunctional behaviors rule the day.
No Fire in the Belly Rituals
Most banks have cultures resembling those of their cities' morgues. They can
get worse after acquisitions. People who have quit but forgot to tell payroll
show up every day and punch in. They do what they’re told to do – and
nothing more.
You need more; the “more” is where the profits are.
The fastest way to a healthy conversion is fun. Fun is an economic powerhouse. Imagine people “high-fiving” each other, having daily huddles and weekly celebrations of accomplishments with prizes and recognitions, and experiencing a leadership team visible in inspiring the fun. You are on your way to one of the fastest transitions to profit imaginable!
Everyone wants to have fun and be recognized. We all want to know how we win so we can and how we lose so we don’t. And we want to bring our playful spirits to the game every day and yuck it up between spreadsheets to make the spreadsheets show better bottom-line results. People produce more when they’re having fun.
Business schools have prepared our heads for mergers and acquisitions. However, mergers and acquisitions are games which are won with the heart.
And that is the game you must master.
Roxanne
Emmerich, CSP, CMC, is author of Profit-Growth Banking: How to Master 7
Breakthrough Strategies of Top-Performing Banks and Thank God it’s Monday. She
spoke on this topic during the recent WIB Annual Conference in
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