How to adjust to a new corporate culture after a merger.

Whether welcomed or not, corporate mergers are here to stay. However, recent statistics show 66 per cent of organisational transitions fail, very often because top management focuses on 'the deal'. Executives who provide insufficient attention to the cultural

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Successful mergers are composed of productive, motivated people who have a shared vision and values, a clear understanding of short-and long-term goals, the opportunity to practise new behaviours and who are reinforced/rewarded for their contributions. In an era of market saturation, the quality of an organisation's employees have emerged as the only sustainable competitive advantage.

The creation of a corporate culture in a merger environment is more than a list of values or ethics posted on an internal website. It is about how leaders and employees live the corporate brand. It affects how people perform individually and as teams, and the degree to which they uphold the reputation and image of an organisation. However, for something so important, a company's culture can be often misunderstood, misread or disregarded.

The importance of leadership

In the pre- and post-stages of a merger and/or acquisition (M&A), staff welfare should be paramount; two-way communication is essential. The worst situation is for employees to learn about their future in a newspaper rather than from the organisation they work for and trust. Leaders need to 'walk the corridors' and interact with staff, and be seen to be doing their job and continuing to perform, despite the uncertainty.

Communicate with staff

In every stage of an M&A, employee feedback is to be actively encouraged. Ensure there are different media available for staff to raise issues, comments or concerns, including informal discussion/focus groups or suggestion boxes. While most leaders successfully get the message across about being open to feedback, how they respond to the information is the key to retaining a fundamental understanding of the 'temperature' of the organisation and retaining forward momentum in performance and organisational unity. It is essential to have a clear and transparent process for receiving and acting upon staff issues and concerns. It may even be appropriate to establish a repository log of all staff issues and update it with what is being done to resolve them.