Managing the team

Endings and beginnings are important features of mergers and acquisitions, and these are most usefully addressed at the team level. The ideas of William Bridges (Chapter 3) provide a useful template for management activity during ending, the neutral zone and the new beginnings that occur during a merger or acquisition.

Managing endings

The endings are about saying goodbye to the old way of things. This might be specific ways of working, a familiar building, team mates, a high level of autonomy or some well-loved traditions. In the current era of belt-tightening and cost-cutting, there might be quite a lot of losses for people, similar to the effects of a restructuring exercise. (See Chapter 1 for more tips on handling redundancies.) Here is some advice for how managers can manage the ending phase (or how to get them to let go):

Acknowledge that the old company is ending, or the old ways of doing things are ending.
Give people time to grieve for the loss of familiar people if redundancies are made. Publish news of their progress in newsletters.
Do something to mark the ending: for example have a team drink together specifically to acknowledge the last day of trading as the old company.
Be respectful about the past. It is tempting to denigrate the old management team or the old ways of working to make the new company look more attractive. This will not work. It will just create resentment.

Managing the transition from old to new

This phase of a merger or acquisition, often known as integration, can be chaotic if it is not well managed. The ‘barnyard behaviour’ mentioned above combined with high anxiety about the future can lead to good people leaving and stress levels reaching all-time highs. Conflicts that are not nipped in the bud at this stage can lead to huge and permanent rifts between the two companies involved.

Tuckman’s model of team development is useful to explain what goes on in a new merged management team, or a newly merged sales team. We have also added some suggestions for how to manage these phases. See Table 6.4.

Table 6.4: How to manage the development of a merged team
Stage	Team activity	Advice for leaders
Forming	• Confusion • Uncertainty • Assessing situation • Testing ground rules • Feeling out others • Defining goals • Getting acquainted • Establishing rules	Be very clear about roles and responsibilities in the new company. Talk about where people have come from in terms of the structure, process and culture in their previous situation. Compare notes. Define key customers for the team and begin to agree new groundrules for how the team will work together.
Storming	• Disagreement over priorities • Struggle for leadership • Tension • Hostility • Clique formation	Make time for team to discuss important issues. Be patient. Be clear on direction and purpose of the team. Nip conflict between cultures and people in the bud by talking to those involved.
Norming	• Consensus • Leadership accepted • Trust established • Standards set • New stable roles • Cooperation	Develop decision-making process. Maintain flexibility by reviewing goals and process.
Performing	• Successful performance • Flexible task roles • Openness • Helpfulness	Delegate more. Stretch people. Encourage innovation.

Timing for this stage is also important. The integration stage should neither be squeezed into an impossible two-week period, nor be treated as an open-ended process that continues unaided for years. The need to squeeze this phase into a two-week period comes from management denial of the very existence of integration issues. Conversely, the need to let things take their course over time comes from a belief that time will solve all the issues and they cannot be hurried. Therefore they are allowed to drag on and possibly get worse, and more entrenched.

Bridges offers advice about managing the integration phase which we have adapted to be directly useful for mergers and acquisitions:

Explain that the integration phase will be hard work and will need (and get) attention.

Set short-range goals and checkpoints.

Encourage experimentation and risk taking.

Encourage people to brainstorm with members of the new company to find answers to both old and new problems.

Managing beginnings

It is important to recognize when the timing is right to celebrate a new beginning. Managers need to be careful not to declare victory too soon. Here are some ideas for this phase:

Be really clear about the purpose of the merger or acquisition, and keep coming back to this as your bedrock.
Paint a vision of the future for you and your team, describing an attractive future for those listening. (ROCE or ROI just doesn’t do it for most people!)
Act as a role model by integrating well at your own level, and being seen to be doing so.
Do something specific to celebrate a new beginning.

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Managing the team