How to Survive a Merger

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Readers lately had an important discussion about the way to survive a merger, so I assumed we’d spherical up a few of their suggestions…

The unique query asker recognized herself as a supervisor in a small to medium firm present process a merger/acquisition. She famous that she was staying on, however she’d by no means been via an acquisition earlier than.

Readers chimed in with nice suggestions…

The right way to Survive a Merger

Be Versatile

Don’t be opposed to vary, these folks get lower first.

Handle As much as Show Your Value and Set Boundaries

Ensure you handle up nicely, as a result of the buying firm is all the time seeking to discover redundancies and lower bills — in different phrases, anticipate that you simply’re going to need to show your job/crew’s necessity to the corporate, whereas additionally maintaining boundaries so your crew doesn’t take in an excessive amount of different work.

Put together Your Resume, and Count on a Wave of Layoffs

“Hold your resume recent, retention tends to be quick lived.” One other commenter agreed with this, noting:

It doesn’t matter what the buying firm says to the staff of the acquired firm, they don’t have any loyalty to anybody and should not “wait till the mud settles” earlier than making cuts. Guarantees are simply phrases, and if the corporate thinks they’ll save ten {dollars} by chopping somebody (or a crew, or whole division) they doubtless will. OP ought to replace her resume and evaluate her community in preparation to start out networking, and maintain her eyes and ears open.

Make Mates and Allies on the Different Corporations — Keep away from a Turf Warfare

One reader groaned that this had been her whole profession, and gave some really wonderful recommendation:

1) Count on a wave of layoffs. Most likely not your crew, however it’ll occur somewhere- often in clearly duplicative roles like finance, HR, and typically advertising.

2) Ask for transparency out of your boss, and be clear together with your crew. Be certain that your crew is aware of you’ve gotten their again.

3) Make new buddies and allies on the different corporations. Don’t let issues change into a turf battle. The extra you may create allies the higher you’ll fare as issues progress. I’ve seen senior leaders get into p*ssing contests over the dumbest stuff. A few of my extra profitable profession moments have been after I might make issues occur throughout the politics of the group.

4) Associated to #3, study NewCo! Attempt to actually perceive their merchandise/providers, and provide you with concepts for how one can be “higher collectively” if that’s the play. I bought a 5 digit bonus the 12 months I put collectively a cross promote map for our firm and our newly merged asset. It bought handed over to gross sales and simply took off. This was within the works, however I bought it carried out quick, actually understood the merchandise and the relevant cross gross sales targets, and made a number of good buddies in gross sales.

Typically, anticipate rebranded the whole lot, some leaders on edge, and different adjustments.

Put together for Cultural Adjustments

One more commenter famous that she’d had an important expertise when it comes to retention when her firm was acquired, however, she warned,

Issues I wasn’t fairly prepared for have been cultural adjustments. Regardless of being what I’d take into account a medium sized firm, we have been very tight knit. Selections weren’t slowed down by course of or folks you didn’t know by title (Pondering HR, IT, management, and so forth). We are actually a part of a behemoth world firm and it’s simply…. completely different. We misplaced a number of that tradition of feeling small and tight knit. Our division remains to be comparatively in tact however there’s no approach to shut out the company overlords, insurance policies and procedures that really feel exhaustive at occasions.

Readers, do you’ve gotten any suggestions so as to add on the way to survive a merger? Have you ever survived a merger or acquisition? What do you would like you’d identified beforehand?

Inventory picture through Stencil.