Despite the inherent risks to performance and valuation , M&A remains one of the most common paths to growing a business. What leaders and dealmakers really need are strategies for minimizing risk and maximizing upside potential. Culture is one of the keys to unlocking lasting M&A success.
Last week, we had the pleasure of co-presenting a webinar on this very topic with John Pancoast from Acquisition.Solutions. More than 100 people registered and we spent an hour discussing culture’s impact on M&A success and how it can be used to de-risk deals and maximize upside.
John showed how culture plays a critical but often-overlooked role at every stage of the M&A process, from due diligence to planning to integration. We then reviewed two simple-but-effective tools for building and harnessing the power of an integrated post-merger culture:
CultureTalk: An employee survey tool that quantifies an organization’s cultural character or archetype, identifying potential areas of conflict or connection when bringing two or more groups together.
Purpose-Way-Impact: A messaging and communications framework that provides a more concise and inspiring way to convey the rationale for a deal and create alignment among all stakeholders.
We even conducted a “living case study,” applying both tools to the current Amazon-Whole Foods integration to show where those two cultures are likely to clash and highlight how leaders could create a shared narrative around common ground.
The presentation was followed by a robust Q&A, and we know the subject struck a chord with participants as we continue to receive incredibly positive feedback, including:
“Excellent job on the webinar! Loved the examples… really brought your points to light.”
“Some great ideas emerged for me. Specifically, a way of helping (my F50 client) thru an internal merger of two depts.”
“Excellent webinar today on mergers and the need to consider culture compatibility. Thank you.”
“Great webinar! I now have good context of how you are using tools like Culture Talk, etc. to guide successful M&A.”
Thanks to everyone who joined in! If you missed the webinar, request a link to the full recording here.