Getting Benefits Promised From Your Acquisition

Your company is finishing the last part of negotiations for an acquisition. It’s exciting. You’ve been working on this deal for months, maybe years. You told the Board you would get increased market share, acquire key talent and improve operational efficiencies.

Now you need to mitigate the potential mayhem a change like this can bring. Time to sharpen up your change management acumen so you can lead your company through this change.

Those who skip this step eventually spend a lot time explaining why the promised benefits were not realized and in some cases why their company’s reputation was damaged.

It’s about people

Change management is about people and their personal reaction to change. If you were just acquiring land or equipment, the integration would need some management, but it would be a lot easier.

Since you are acquiring people – both customers and employees, you will face challenges because humans resist change.

You are expecting your employees (and customers) to be happy about the news of the change. For most people, even when the current situation is not good, they don’t quickly embrace a change. For one thing, change is disruptive. Plus until it happens, there’s the fear of the unknown – those who will be affected worry the change will make things worse.

The change curve is real

In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross created the change curve to illustrate how people deal with the news that they have a terminal illness. While the news of an acquisition isn’t news of impending death, it is news of the end of how things have been, and that news can be unsettling.

The change curve is also used in business. The model’s stages are Denial, Anger, Exploring and Acceptance. You are most likely in the acceptance phase but remember that others will be hearing about the acquisition for the first time. As you work with your leadership team, help them make their way to the acceptance phase and then they can help you guide your workforce and customers.

Change management addresses fears

Getting the benefits you expect requires you to execute a strong change management strategy. At its core, a change management strategy addresses the fears of those impacted by the change. It ensures they get the tools and resources they need to be successful in the new world.

Employees who are impacted may not realize it, but they want to:

·      Understand the change

·      Be included in the change

·      Know what it means to their job, reporting relationship and compensation

·      Receive training and support to handle changes to their role

Mitigate the mayhem

Think of change management as insurance against risk. You assess how much change management you need to avoid the potential mayhem that can come with your change.

How much experience do the impacted employees of both organizations have with change? The people risks are highest when you have a change that impacts several groups differently combined with employees that haven’t experienced significant change in their work before. When this is the case, plan on more robust change management tactics like repeated communication and having trained team members available to field questions from employees and/or customers before, during and after the transition.

Change Management Strategy – check list

Some leaders forget about --or skimp on change management. They don’t know it, but they are taking on unnecessary risk.

When official information about the acquisition is tardy, employees fill in the gaps. They will share inaccurate and negative information. You can head this off with structured change management. Make sure your change management strategy has these components.

1.    Acquisition Playbook and resources. You need a roadmap for this acquisition that includes roles and responsibilities for those accountable for making it happen. This playbook gives these key stakeholders who are responsible for executing on this plan the approach, resources and timeline for rollout. In most cases, this core team will need to have their other responsibilities back-filled by others so they can focus on the integration. Not relieving them of their regular responsibilities will make the integration take longer, and put current customers at risk.

2.    Key Message Development. You need to align your leaders on this decision. Get crisp with how you explain the rationale for the decision. Literally have a list of key messages that you consistently reference. Delivering consistent, repeated messages will help employees understand why the acquisition makes sense, and how it’s going to benefit your customers and your organization. Start with delivering these messages to your leadership team. Additionally, be specific on what the change means to each of them. If you don’t know yet, say that. Commit to letting each of them know as soon as possible. Make this a priority and do it. Once a leader knows what the change means for them, they can be all-in. Then they are better able to lead others through the change. Equip your leadership team with the key messages in the form of talking points and FAQs.

3.    Impact Assessment. Decide what organizations and business processes will be touched and which ones won’t be. For example - will the sales teams remain separate or be combined? How about the billing process? For those organizations and/or processes that will be integrated, you need documented organization charts and business process maps that show how they are today so you can compare them to how they will be after the integration. If you or the company you are acquiring don’t have organization charts or process maps, spend time to get the basics documented. For organization charts – you need to know who reports to whom and a description of each person’s responsibility. For business processes, you need the process name, its input and output, the participants, their tasks and handoffs. With these in hand, you can compare them to the new organization and new business processes. That will allow you to see and understand which people are impacted by the change and how.

4.    Metrics Strategy. Determine how you are going to measure the benefits projected. Establish your pre-acquisition baselines for each metric and confirm you know how to collect and summarize the post-acquisition data and who is going to do this. Consider also collecting and reporting metrics around adoption of new practices and proficiency in them.

5.    Engagement Strategy. Consider how best to engage the leaders of the impacted groups. They will be on-point for delivering the message to their team about what the change means to them. Make sure you are getting messages back from these leaders too about concerns being raised and suggestions for how to improve the integration. Be open to the feedback and remain nimble enough to course correct as needed.

6.    Resistance Strategy. When people are not accepting of a change, they will resist it. This can show up a lot of ways - including employees withholding key information, employees bad-mouthing leaders and even more employees missing work. The result is a delay or even forfeiting of the some of the benefits expected.  Spend time considering who or which groups are most likely to feel threatened by this change. Put a plan in place to head off their fears with timely information and openness to dialogue. Got a true naysayer? Add them to your change management team. They will feel part of something. They’ll be with you, not against you and can prove to be your strongest ally in on-boarding others.

7.    Training and Communication Strategy. For your training strategy, assess who needs what training. Then how and when you will develop and deliver the training. Consider training resources you have and what training staff augmentation is needed to meet your timeline. Develop a detailed plan that complements your summarized training strategy. For your communication strategy, determine who needs to hear what when. Then consider how communication is effectively done today to these audiences (e.g. , staff meetings, town halls, emails) and which of these channels you want to use in your communication plan. Also establish which leaders will review and approve the communication before it’s executed. Get creative as you consider ways to communicate and re-enforce the excitement around the change.

Realize the promised benefits

Your company is entering a new chapter. It’s exciting. Intentional or not, you set the tone for how this change will be viewed by most people. Be intentional. Be thoughtful. Employ purposeful change management to facilitate the good work needed to get your company through the change smoothly and on to realizing the benefits expected.

About me: I am passionate about getting the workplace culture right. I know that cold hard facts combined with compassion is what is needed to motivate individuals to do the hard work that change requires. I help leaders determine what they need to do to modernize their culture and workplace to make it smart, safe and inspiring. I also train people leaders to role model and inspire development of In Real Life business skills that promote camaraderie, relational equity, innovation and belonging.

Here are related stories for leaders. Download or order your copy of my book Disconnected for more practical ideas for how to deliver realness, meaning and belonging to your youngest workers. Visit www.colleenmcfarland.us for more information.