MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Merger management
All the management team went through change management
training to assist them in achieving this and I have to say that
given the democratic process that we went through, every
person then threw their weight behind the new merger process.
For the ordinary staff, that was somewhat difficult for them to
contend with, having been told that a particular route was not be
contemplated, that route was going to be their saviour and is
actually going to benefit them. It took quite a bit of convincing.
For the management of the organisation it took a lot of thought
and a lot of hard work to convince those people firstly that they
should stay and secondly that, in staying, they should believe
the managers who were saying that this was the right way
forward. (Interviewee C)
Within the new union, there is a diversity of views about how the
aspects of the merger had been managed and what was the right thing
to do, suggesting that the corporate approach was perhaps not as
developed as the old union managers might have intended. From the
top, though, there is some satisfaction:-
We prided ourselves on being able to get people to talk together,
to get people to mix in projects, for example. By and large, the
quality of people both in old NWSA and old Unifi was good. And
quality in BIFU was good. Obviously, there were some people
that you would not give the time of day to because you inherit
some people, you do not choose them. We have had some
people who have not gelled well. We have had some people
who left us because they could not hack the change. They
preferred the voluntary redundancy programme and we let them
go. We told some people they could not go because we needed
them but others we said that if you wanted to go, go (Interviewee
E)
This statement gives headline news rather than specifics about the
approach to merger management. The view is, though, shared from a
very senior level:-
Everything about Unifi has been pretty smooth. It has been
remarkable really. There have been a few little problems but
they are minor. So changing the way that we operate and the
people that are doing the operating became intertwined and
became very important. And it shook the tree a bit – people
seeing that things were not sacred and that they were going to
alter and change. And changing the culture is important
because if you do not change, you die. It is very simple to me.
But how it changes is difficult for some people to cope with.
(Interviewee N)
The same interviewee articulated another aspect of his approach to
change:-
239