cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

Mergers and acquisitionsGet the structure rightTHE IMPORTANCE OF DECISIONSABOUT STRUCTUREAt the time we thought it best to keep everyone happy and productive. Boththe merged companies had good production managers, so we decided to askthem to work alongside each other, to share skills and learn a bit about theother person’s way of working.We thought this was the best idea to keep production high, and to promoteharmony and learning. However, in the end it turned out to be highly unproductive.It was a huge strain for the two individuals involved in both cases. Theythought they were being set up to compete, despite protestations that this wasnot so. Both began to show signs of stress.This structural decision (or rather indecision) also slowed the integrationprocess down as people wanted to stay loyal to their original manager. Theystudiously avoided reporting at all to the new manager from the othercompany. Joint projects ended in stalemate and integration of working standardswas almost impossible to achieve.HR Director, involved in designing structure for mergerStructure is always a thorny issue for merging or acquiring companies.How do you create a structure that keeps the best of what is already there,while providing opportunities for the team to achieve the stretchingtargets that you aspire to?Carey makes the point that it is essential to match the new companystructure to the logic of the acquisition. If for example the intention wasto fully integrate two sales teams to provide cost savings in administrationand improve sales capability, then the structure should reflect this. It istempting for senior managers to avoid conflict by appointing jointmanagers. Although this may work for the managers, it does not usuallywork for the teams. Integration becomes hard work as individuals preferto keep reporting lines as they were.Structure work should start early. Carey advises managers to beginworking on the new structure before the deal is closed. Some companiesuse an integration team to work on this sort of planning. These people are233