Webinar: Getting Culture Fit Right in Post-M&A Integration

For many years, culture clashes have been blamed for the frequent failure of acquisitions to deliver their promised value.  We believe that culture is one of the keys to unlocking lasting M&A success. Leaders and dealmakers need strategies for minimizing risk and maximizing upside potential by dealing effectively with culture.

Last week, we had the pleasure of co-presenting a webinar on this very topic with JP Laqueur from Brand Foundations.  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.

We 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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 departments.”

“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.