Navigating Cultural Differences In Acquisitions

The last couple of days, I’ve shared some thoughts around culture in M&A. Today, I’d like to talk about the power of employee listening for understanding the target company’s culture and powering cultural integration. Before the announcement, we can only get the perceptions of people who are under the tent, outside parties, and what’s been shared in the media. That means we’re only getting part of the story during the cultural due diligence phase. To learn the rest of the story, we want to hear what employees have to say. We usually do this with surveys, interviews, and focus groups. They provide invaluable insights to help us understand potential areas of both cultural synergy and culture clash. I’ve found there are frequently disparities between how leaders perceive their organization’s culture and how employees experience it. Employee listening helps to bridge this gap, offering a more nuanced view of the culture. A few years ago, I worked on a deal where the value drivers were rooted in warehouse efficiency. None of the target’s leaders have ever worked in the warehouse – in fact, they really didn’t think about the warehouse much during the sale, and they saw the warehouse workers as fungible. Everything was focused on the office where they worked. So, of course, all of the cultural questions were answered from the perspective of an office worker who was not a key value driver. After the deal was announced, the integration leader and I spent time in the warehouse, listening to the employees there. They had great ideas about how we could make the acquisition more successful, including inexpensive ideas that would drive efficiency, which was the entire goal of the deal. We worked with their leadership to implement several of the ideas. We drove amazing synergies in this deal – synergies that never would have happened if we didn’t spend time listening to employees who were overlooked during the formal diligence phase. This experience underscored the importance of comprehensive employee listening. It's not just about the boardroom - it's about every room. In your experience, how have you used employee listening in cultural due diligence? I'd love to hear your thoughts. #MergersAndAcquisitions #CulturalDueDiligence #EmployeeListening

Mergers are like marriages of convenience. Necessary but not necessarily desired. Are you helping people grieve their losses? Mergers and acquisitions are typically treated as financial deals. Legal, accounting, and operations teams take the lead. Spreadsheets are reviewed. Synergies are projected. But where is the space for grief? As an Organizational Ombuds, I’ve seen this play out time and time again: people aren’t just adjusting to a new org chart—they’re mourning the loss of the company they knew. Their familiar language, inside jokes, unspoken rules, even who gets the last word in meetings—all of that changes overnight. Each organization is like a sovereign nation with its own customs. A merger isn’t just a deal—it’s a cultural collision. If integration teams aren’t equipped to address that, resistance builds, trust erodes, and your top talent quietly disengages. What if we did it differently? 🔍 What if M&A teams included an Ombuds from day one? Unlike consultants focused on systems or advisors focused on valuation, Ombuds serve as confidential thought partners—listening to fears, spotting friction early, and helping leaders communicate in ways that feel human, not corporate. 🧠 We help people process change before it becomes conflict. 🗣 We teach leaders how to listen, not just announce. 🤝 And we translate between cultures—so that both legacy teams feel respected and heard. Because behind every stalled integration or culture clash is a simple truth: no one was tasked with helping people feel safe enough to adapt. So, I’ll ask: ➡️ Who on your integration team is responsible for emotional fluency? ➡️ How are you equipping leaders to communicate with empathy? ➡️ Who’s listening when people feel lost, angry, or overlooked? The numbers matter—but the human experience is what determines whether your integration thrives or fractures. Let’s not treat grief like a risk to be managed. Let’s treat it like a truth to be honored.

Culture clash is real when you're in acquisition mode. When companies merge, you can't just have an operational onboarding check list and call it a day. Companies are people. You are merging people. If you skip the onboarding, the relationship building, the cultural alignment, employees feel confused, customers feel disconnected, and suddenly, the brand feels "off". Here’s how our clients make M&A transitions look easy 💅 : 👉 Clarity: Establish a clear vision that’s shared across both teams. We do this through surveys, realignment around archetypes, sharing stories of past wins, and defining together who we are as a merged team, and where we're going. 👉 Alignment: Internalize your vision with your employees. Create internal campaigns that reinforce the messaging, conduct workshops to teach real world use cases for telling our story, and make it fun with teasers and merch drops. 👉 Activation: Get loud and clear with your audience. Rollout language to customers and partners in ways that speak to their problems, reinforce their decision to work with you, and show them the future you are building together. Have you been through an M&A brand project? What did I miss?

🔁 Simple 3-Step Process from McKinsey & Company to Organizational Culture in Mergers 🔁 With a cheat sheet to create a unified company culture. Success hinges on more than financial synergies. You must work on seamlessly blending organizational cultures. McKinsey's seasoned experts share a proven three-step approach to mastering this crucial aspect of integration, drawing from insights gained through 2,800 mergers from 2014 to 2019: 1️⃣ 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 > Dive deep into each company's DNA, uncovering the unique "secret sauce" and identifying pearls that must be preserved > Don't rely on gut instincts - employ a scientific approach through surveys, interviews, and focus groups to build a fact-based understanding 2️⃣ 𝐒𝐞𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 > Ask two important questions: What behaviors will maximize deal value? and where are the gaps that demand attention? > Develop a clear from-to roadmap, ensuring alignment across the top team, and involve target-company leaders for successful implementation 3️⃣ 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝-𝐰𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 > Embed the identified themes and initiatives into the company's operating model > Redesign policies, processes, and governance to reflect the desired culture > Identify influencers within the organization and empower them as change agents > Leverage signature initiatives to underscore commitment I’m sharing below a cheat sheet on creating a unified company culture. Check it out.👇🏼 What do you think is the most underrated factor in cultural alignment during mergers? 💭 #Culture #CultureIntegration #MergersSuccess #Leadership #CorporateTransformation

An acquisition isn’t a strategy. It’s a starting point. The deal is done. But the team? Not yet. Here’s where we see integration stall every time: 🔸️Culture is assumed, not aligned. 🔸️Middle managers are left in the dark. 🔸️The new “we” never gets defined. To get ahead of that, here are 3 steps you can take today: 1. Define 3 non-negotiable behaviors that highlight what good leadership looks like now. Get specific. Co-create these expectations across both legacy teams. 2. Spot the hidden tripwires. Culture isn’t the poster on the wall, it’s how decisions get made and who gets rewarded. Identify mismatches early, before they trigger breakdowns. 3. Equip the middle 20%. These managers carry the weight of change. Invest in their clarity and confidence now, or risk confusion later. Allison Wright and I built a culture integration tool to support this work- one that surfaces blind spots, aligns behavior, and creates shared language for what’s next. Signing the deal is the easy part. Building a unified team that performs? That’s the real integration. What’s one thing you wish someone had told you before your first M&A integration? #MergersAndAcquisitions #Leadership #IntegrationStrategy #OrganizationalEffectiveness #CultureChange #ChangeManagement #Transformation