Several years ago, a major strategic consulting firm examined some 40 mergers and acquisitions worth more than $1 billion apiece that had failed to deliver their expected results. To no one's surprise, the number-one reason for deal failure was "poor integration" – characterized by loss of key staff, inadequate due diligence and delays in communication.

Businesses can improve the chances for M&A success by involving organizational development (OD) professionals in pre-merger processes, rather than only after the deal has been signed, to help with post-merger integration.

Why is this important? Because OD professionals can provide both strategic insight and bottom-line savings throughout the M&A process. Specifically, they can contribute to pre-merger research, due diligence, discovery and courtship, planning and strategy formulation, restructuring, and communication – as well as post-merger integration.

Here are some strategies that OD professionals can employ to maximize M&A success:

Pre-merger Research

• Invest as much time as possible to learn about the target organization to assess whether it will meet specific goals.
• Educate clients with respect to how incompatible cultures can jeopardize the target's potential to increase market share, allow for entry into new markets, attract and retain certain talent, allow for vertical integration, and produce new distribution channels.

Pre-merger Due Diligence

• Evaluate core competencies, value chains, and leadership strength as well as financial and legal aspects.
• Examine both organizations' structures, systems and strategies for potential incompatibility.
• Assess how the environments in which both organizations operate will define the structural (internal) and contextual (external) dimensions of the blended organization.
• Evaluate values, communications, organizational practices, governance, ethics, corporate citizenship, and other elements of organizational culture for compatibility.

Pre-merger Discovery and Courtship

• Utilize formal audits to assess culture and interviews and formal assessments to determine leadership capability.
• Discuss early on who will be in charge. "Saving face" for the acquired organization may seem laudable, but it can also cause confusion, create ambiguities, and waste valuable resources.

Pre-merger Planning and Strategy Formulation

• Reconcile differences in ways that leverage the strength of the merged firm.
• Explore strengths and potential synergies to decide what can be shared and what needs to remain different.
• Identify and reinforce core values. Explore differences by leveraging as well as being alert for potential obstacles.

Pre-merger Restructuring

• Formulate new vision, mission, goals, objectives, and strategies and a plan for communication.
• Decide how to announce the integration or assimilation effort and utilize a consultant who can effectively manage change, including sensitive issues such as ego, pride and turf.
• Assemble task forces or cross-functional integration teams and formulate a detailed and tactical operating plan.

Pre-merger Communication

• Communicate frequently, efficiently, and effectively to secure employee buy-in and to maximize retention and productivity.
• Use a variety of communication tools to announce new roles and structures, including presentations, videos, e-mail, and information on the Intranet or within employee portals.
• Honor the technological, economic and historical legacies of both organizations. Integration/assimilation is much easier when both cultures believe they bring value to the blend.
• Once announcements have been made, build relationships and trust by keeping employees up to date on outstanding issues and the integration/assimilation process in general.
• Ensure that employees know there is still advancement potential and make efforts to "re-recruit" key contributors.
• Communicate that organizational change temporarily decreases productivity, even when skillfully managed.

Post-merger Integration or Assimilation

• Launch the integration stage quickly, putting working systems in place as soon as possible.
• Continue due diligence teams as integration teams that can function as change agents and advocates. Visibly support team efforts and equip team members with formal training in change management and group dynamics.
• Use culture audits, employee surveys, focus groups, change agents and advocates to track the success of the integration/assimilation.

There is considerable challenge in managing M&A change. Many organizations have found that cross-border mergers and acquisitions create an even greater element of complexity. However, even when mergers are not global in scale, businesses should consider retaining experienced OD professionals throughout all stages of the process.

OD professionals should work closely with the senior leadership of both organizations and with integration managers or integration teams when they are in place. They should assist all of these groups as coaches and facilitators, as well as working with internal and external communications specialists, task forces, change agents, and/or individuals in the HR Department, where resistant forces manifest themselves in employee relations issues.

Most employers will agree that an executive's first 100 days in a new position are critical to the success of the organization and the individual.

Developing effective relationships with stakeholders, adapting to the corporate culture and establishing their personal brand in a new organization are among the challenges that newly hired executives face. The question becomes, how can corporations expedite the assimilation of new executives so that "stars" can more quickly become "superstars"? The answer, for growing numbers of businesses, is WJM Associates' FastStart™ On-Board Coaching.

Significant Position

Recently, WJM Associates worked with a newly hired senior executive with an international leader in digital video technology. The company manufactures and markets a comprehensive line of video security and surveillance systems products worldwide.

The company had created an important new position for a group manager of marketing who would be responsible for the development and execution of marketing strategies and initiatives for the video security and surveillance, biometrics, point of sale, and medical and industrial vision product lines.

In addition to directing all marketing personnel within the organization, this new executive would work closely with the company's brand management group and external agencies/vendors to manage all advertising, Web, and public relations activities.

This was a very significant new position. The global markets for the company's products were growing rapidly, and the organization needed someone who could make a positive impact on the business quickly.

To fill this important position, the company recruited an international and domestic marketing executive who had established a subsidiary company for a U.S. manufacturer that imported equipment from Europe. A graduate of a leading international business-studies program, the executive is fluent in several languages, including German, Italian and French.

WJM Associates' Approach

To help the new executive become productive in their organization quickly, the company brought in WJM Associates to provide FastStart™ On-Board Coaching.

Fast Start™ provides new executives with critical strategies for: 

• Learning about the organization, including its culture and politics;
• Understanding expectations of the new role;
• Developing effective communication approaches;
• Gaining insights into business unit processes and practices;
• Effective knowledge transfer;
• Recognizing common pitfalls and developing action plans to avoid or mitigate these risks;
• Developing high quality relationships with management, peers and subordinates; and
• Establishing targets for "early wins."

Working with a member of WJM Associates' executive and organizational development faculty, the new executive was able to establish herself in her new position more quickly than she had ever done before.

"I had relocated to this job from another part of the country, so everything was new," says the executive. "Plus, this is the largest organization for which I have worked. I found it particularly beneficial to have an external guide and sounding board who could help me adapt."

Understanding Management Styles

As part of the FastStart™ program, the executive and company president were both given assessments by the WJM Associates coach. The executive and president met together with the coach to review the results, and were able to gain an understanding of each other's management and communications styles more rapidly than they would have had they simply worked together for several months.

For three months, the executive and her coach met weekly to review her FastStart™ objectives and progress.

"My coach helped me set tangible goals each month that were realistically achievable," she says. "He also emphasized the importance of identifying key internal stakeholders who would have an impact on my role here and to really make an effort to establish effective relationships with those people early on. WJM Associates' FastStart™ program definitely helped me get up to speed in my new company more quickly than if I not had a coach there to guide me."

As we begin this new year, please allow me to wish you the best of career success in 2006. On behalf of my colleagues here at WJM Associates, I hope this is the year that you win that big promotion or new job.

When you do move up the ladder, either with your current organization or another one, there are a number of key steps you can take to help assure a successful beginning of this next stage of your career. I've listed a dozen of them below, and encourage you to keep them handy when your "big day" finally arrives.

1. Ask in-depth questions. Your staff, your colleagues and your new boss will feel better about your intelligence by appreciating your level of inquiry. Ask questions that are open-ended, so that the responses you receive are more than simply "yes" or "no."
2. Make collective decisions. Consensus enables people to understand your decision-making process and gives you the best thoughts possible from those around you.
3. Understand completely your boss's expectations, even the hidden ones. This takes time, and is easier said than done. What your boss says is not always what he or she means … or feels.
4. Get to know people, but start with the bottom of the hierarchy and work your way up. The insights of your staff and colleagues can often enrich your perspective of those above you.
5. Spend a great deal of time evaluating your peers. Find out who has the power – and who does not – and why that is so. You can avoid repeating others' mistakes.
6. Schedule time with peers to make sure you understand where they are going, so that you do not get in the way or become obtrusive to their way of operating.
7. Make sure you know what your colleagues and staff expect of you. Use an open dialog with peers and subordinates to solicit their opinions as to what is expected. Share with them what you are going to do and see if they react in a supportive fashion.
8. Set a plan for six months, but keep it very flexible. Recognize that you must learn before you can contribute.
9. Make the function you are directing an essential part of the business. Human Resources, Marketing and other traditional staff functions should be part of the strategic business plan, and not an afterthought.
10. Recognize that you are living under a microscope, at least for the first few months, because you are new and influential. Everything you do will be observed. Your appearance, style, mannerisms, speech patterns, and choice of words are all critical during this time of "getting to know people." And remember: it is okay to say "I do not know". Honesty helps build trust.
11. Ask for feedback – from your staff, your peers, your internal clients, and, especially, your boss. When it comes to understanding what others think of you and your performance, you can't have too much knowledge.
12. Ask for more feedback. 'Nuff said.

extensive experience in consultative account management in the human resources, publishing and recruitment industries, has joined WJM Associates as Account Director. Most recently, Francie served as Director of Business Development for CDI Education, the largest provider of private education services in Canada. Prior to CDI, Francie spent 11 years at DBM, an international career continuation and organizational development consulting firm, mostly as a Relationship Manager in the Tri-state area. In this role, Francie consulted with corporate clients on all aspects of managing and retaining human capital. Before DBM, she enjoyed great success in sales management for a Dun & Bradstreet publication. "As a champion of great customer service, Francie's experience and passion will significantly bolster WJM's account management capacities in Connecticut and beyond," says Chairman and CEO Bill Morin.