Have you ever been involved in a company acquisition (either being bought or buying another company)?
Our reader poll today asks: Have you ever been involved in a company acquisition (either being bought or buying another company)?
- Yes, and it went great 12.25%
- Yes, and it went okay 43.54%
- Yes, and it went terrible 20.75%
- Nope, never happened to me 23.46%
Mergers can work, but they take work. It’s good to see that 55% of you have had decent (or better) experiences with mergers and acquisitions. And in this case, that’s 73% of you who have been through an acquisition when excluding those who haven’t had to deal with this particular challenge. Acquisitions can create a lot of turmoil and they require a significant amount of effort to make them work. This includes substantial integration preparation well in advance of the deal being completed. As a leader, the most important thing you can do during an acquisition is communicate with your team. Do not commit to being transparent because that’s not a promise you’ll be able to keep. Much of the work of an acquisition needs to remain confidential until specific points in time. Instead, commit to being candid and sharing what you know as soon as you’re able to share it. The more you can alleviate people’s fears during the acquisition process, the more they can focus on their work of making the acquisition a success.
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.
Hi Mike,
Your comments above on sharing information when it can be shared are spot on. A few jobs ago, I was part or a “merger of equals” that definitely fit the “It went terrible” category. The merger partner came through like a conquering army in spite of a lot of promises (lies), totally wrecking almost everything in their path. Within 2 years morale was so bad that it was impossible to get much done, and the business finished the year in the red; the first time that had happened since it began over 30 years before. Today, the follow-on effects of that disaster are still felt. The last time I checked, the folks that took us over were in a search for a buyer.
Be careful who you agree to merge with. And PLEASE don’t lie to people about your purpose and goals; it just deepens the problems when people find out tue truth.