CULTURAL INTEGRATION:

A Proactive People-Based Approach for Mergers and Acquisitions

Cultural Integration is a process of taking leadership action to consciously assess the changes and impact of these changes occurring in a newly combined work system in order to create the most effective and efficient transition to the new business.

The Third Zone has had a great deal of experience working within changing businesses. Whether they are coming together as a result of a merger or acquisition, or seemingly coming apart as the often resulting change in the workforce.

When organizational change occurs on a large scale, the cultural impact is often overlooked due to the more obvious attention given to process and policy changes. While cultural change is the most overlooked, it can also be the most costly as a result of the following concerns:

• A diminished sense of employee loyalty due to uncertainty of their individual futures
• Loss of an existing culture bringing about increased employee turnover
• A drawn out period of transition before integration plan, process and occurrence take place driving employees to seek opportunities elsewhere
• Overall decrease in productivity due to time and energy spent on damage control by middle and upper management
• Loss of productivity due to inconsistent communication of future vision and goals
• Employees not having a voice in the design or involvement of the integration solutions
• Employees experiencing change to their work assignments, routines and reporting structure. Failure to recognize the expanse of this impact and to act speedily to address it increases the potential risk exponentially

Benefits of a Third Zone Solution

• Enables the critical process of cultural integration to be launched immediately with Third Zone coaches
• Cultural integration focus can be given appropriate and necessary attention while internal personnel are focused on all the other integration initiatives such as process and policy revisions
• Assessment, Analysis and Design can be accomplished in advance of the official closing of the many mergers and acquisitions
• Decrease the threat of any of the above potential concerns becoming reality

The Process of Cultural Integration:

1. Customized Cultural Assessment - Taking the true pulse of the employee base to get a clear picture of what is in the culture right now - the concerns, issues, excitement, strengths, weaknesses, resistance, current acceptance level
2. Cultural Systems, Structures, and Metrics - Sustain cultural integration momentum
3. Cultural Integration Strategy Design - Utilizing internal company focus groups to create the specific content and strategy that will be effective in delivering a consistent communication of cultural and strategic vision to the employee base resulting in the most effective and accepted integration of the organizations.
4. Strategic Implementation Coaching Events - Implementation of cultural integration coaching events to overcome any resistance and gain acceptance through involvement of full employee base

Whether you anticipate a merging of cultures or are right in the middle of it... Call today 866-902-3777