[Milou van der Hoek]

Hi all, I see a lot of focus in PMI discussions on talent and knowledge retention. However, in my experience there are also people, no matter how gifted and valuable they have been at the acquired company, can become real negative influences after closure. I notice that change is not for everyone, and sometimes the inevitability of new team structures can make some talented individuals become quite detrimental to successful integration. Sometimes their negative impact can outweigh their value. Is this something you have noticed too, and how have you dealt with that?

[Jerry Pomije]

I have found this to be a common issue on the acquisitions and subsequent integrations I have worked on. It has been the most challenging when we are bringing on the original founder/owner of the business we have acquired to lead that business as an employee. In 3 of the 5 times we have done this in my company it has not worked out and the original owner has exited the business. After having 2 negative experiences we changed our process and we now socialize the key leaders in our target companies to our business model, process, values and key aspects of our culture and established clear expectations up front. We have added extensive conversations with the target leadership around cultural fit within our business model in the early stages of the process and that has helped significantly. We will walk away from a deal when see significant issues with cultural fit arise. This has helped improve our success rate.

[Robert Swedberg]

I am not an HR professional but I have been an employee in several M&A scenarios during my career as an accountant and analyst. Dealing with negative behaviors during the integration phase is an inevitable byproduct because people are people. (Thank you Captain Obvious). My specific recommendation is that the integration team members on both sides of the transaction pay EXTRA attention to the working-class employees in the company. Too much attention is focused on the C-Suite and Upper Management people and not enough to the people in lower lever and lower paying positions.

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