MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Merger management
The starting premise was that there were going to be no
redundancies, not even voluntary ones. That came about
because we had downsizing at Ealing two years before and we
ended up with too many volunteers because it was a good
package. The reality is that a lot of people actually wanted
redundancy- they didn't want to come to the new headquarters
but to manage that would have been very difficult. So the
starting point was that we didn't want any redundancies,
voluntary or otherwise. So everyone was going to have a job
(Interviewee J).
there was no corporate approach at all to the management of the
merger, which seems very much to have been left to the managers
concerned. At the outset, this even stretched to reaching agreement on
who would do what:-
Myself and my counterpart were very much left to our own
devices to decide what we were going to do. Now that was
probably a wise decision because we happen to be both very
professional and we could come quite easily, because of our
personalities, to a happy mutual agreement, because also of
what our first loves were. So personally from that point of view
that worked out well. Whether it was the right approach to have
in this sort of situation, from a strategic point of view, with two
senior people, I'm not sure but it turned out OK. In other words
from a management point of view in dealing with myself and T
there wasn't any input from senior level other than agreeing
what we decided ourselves (Interviewee K)
We worked it out between us. We eventually reached agreement
that I would take on the role of Personnel and she would do
Facilities. She wanted to keep some element of Personnel so we
agreed that she would also do training. But no-one really asked
us what was happening. If you asked D what his views were, he
just wouldn't give them. So it really was a case that you had to
sort it out yourself. I'm not sure what would have happened if we
hadn't sorted it out ourselves. I suppose there was the pressure
of knowing that if we couldn't sort it out ourselves, someone else
was going to do it and we might not like the outcome.
(Interviewee J)
This individualistic approach continued with the building of new
functions within the merged headquarters building:-
So I had to make sure that the two different cultures were
merged together so that the benefits of membership will be well
achieved by all. In doing so, first of all what I had to do was to
visit the office in Ealing because I came from the Postal side,
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