Let us manage the "cultural side" of your merger, acquisition, or new business initiative

Tools and Training We Used in this Case

Harvard Business school has identified cultural disconnect as one of the top deadly sins that can derail a merger. Are your cultures clashing, your key people leaving, and important deadlines slipping? We can help you manage your change and execute on your business goals.

Our client, a 400-person software development organization was acquiring a slightly smaller firm with a "cash cow" product. The acquisition was a perfect fit on the business side, but polar opposites on the cultural side. One was very creative and entrepreneurial, the other hierarchical and slow to change. We met with small groups in Boston, London and New York to orient them to each others' culture. The new strategy also required product management to increase communication with internal and client facing functions, adopt consistent processes for managing client projects, and be able to influence marketing and technology to buy into their plans. Communication of the company wide strategy, goals and objectives built an urgency and awareness; but observable and sustainable behavioral changes required our intervention.

Working closely with internal HR consultants, we:

• Identified cultural barriers such as lack of mutual accountability and inefficient decision making. We used the Culture Compass™ to align the culture change strategy with the business strategy, and to build bridges between individuals groups and functions..

• Clarified roles that were complicated by a cross-functional martixed structure, and the combining of the two disparate cultures.

• Defined best practices for cross-functional teamwork using the FasTeams® Toolset, especially decision making.

• Implemented a continuous improvement process to improve meetings and conference calls using a customized Team Process Check™

• Aligned the performance review and reward system with the desired behaviors.

• Coached individual leaders on using influence without authority, win-win negotiations and leading project teams.

The results:

• Within 4 months, leaders of all internal and client facing functions from both original companies were aligned around cross-functional goals and working to meet those goals.

• Cross-functional teams were completing goals 50% faster.

• Meetings and conference calls improved from a satisfaction rating of 3 to 7 (1 being the lowest, 7 the highest) on the Team Process Check™.