Summary.
If your company is undergoing a merger or acquisition, you’re apt to feel anxious. Roughly 30% of employees are deemed redundant when firms in the same industry merge. But you needn’t dread the outcome, say the authors, who draw on their experience as academics and consultants. They’ve found that employees usually reap great rewards if they embrace the M&A process as a chance for introspection and growth.
Your first step should be to figure out where you stand. The authors recommend conducting a SWOT analysis: Assess your strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats that the deal presents. Then get involved in the integration effort—in a way that lets you showcase or sharpen your skills. Executing transition plans, innovating, and collaborating with new colleagues are all postmerger opportunities for personal growth. If you prove adept, you will be well positioned for success in the hybrid organization—or at another company.
The authors suggest specific questions to ask yourself as you take stock of the situation. They provide tips on how to make sure you have a role in the integration work. And they present brief case studies of four professionals who followed the recommended approach and emerged from their companies’ M&A deals as “winners.”
For individual managers and employees, a merger or acquisition is not just a corporate strategy; it’s a personally disruptive—often traumatic—event. What C-suite executives and consultants euphemistically call “postmerger integration” is typically a period of tension, uncertainty, and even chaos. Workloads ramp up, as do pressure and stress. You may have to quickly adapt to unfamiliar policies, practices, and politics; work with strangers from different corporate or even national cultures; or report to new bosses who know nothing about your track record or ambitions. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee of a job with the resulting organization, let alone a long-term career. On average, roughly 30% of employees are deemed redundant after a merger or acquisition in the same industry.