Mergers and acquisitions?

[Douke Oostenbrink]

Phil,

Two years ago a part of university merged with a profit organization. There
was no choice for the employees. And there was a lot of resistance because
of the differences in corporate cultures. The issue found was the difference
in rates. In the Netherlands not for profit organizations do not have to
charge for taxes and profit organizations have. Simply spoken the employees
did not want to merge because it was impossible to have one fee. This was
one of the visible issues. Underlaying was the difference in culture.
Working on a university meant for a lot of the workers that you are free to
do your scientific work. That means no interference from the management, not
counting the hours work etc. While working in a profit organization meant
that scientific work has to serve other goals, results of examinations will
be corrupted because of the management wants specific results etc. This was
just the beginning of controverses and believe me there were a lot.

As consultant I was asked how to handle this. All workers were highly
educated professionals and it does not work to tell them what to do. We
agreed to an OS for both workers of the university and the profit
organization. There were more than 300 participants. After the introduction
I had to get out of their way. Passion and responsability - it worked so
well. All frustrations about the merge that was not choosen by the workers
were mentioned but in a very supportive way. Because in OS there is no
resistance - it is only a way of showing their their deepest concern and
when put your trust in the simple question: what is your passion and do you
want to take the responsability for it - then as consultant you do not have
to interfere. That day people who were very opposite to each other spoke to
eachother and shared their concern and this was a really sharing (perhaps
for the first time). That day meant a shift and a huge accelleration in the
merging proces.

So in my experience everything you can imagine what has to be brought up,
every issue you can think of are the issues that will be brought up by them
if you can give them time and space. And they are not only discussed, people
tend to do something about it. They make an action planning by themselves
and  there is no resistance that you have to overcome. They take care for
the implementation 

I hope that this answers your question. If you want to know some more,
please ask me.

Douke Oostenbrink
Harrison Gifford Change Works!
 
-------Original Message-------
 
Van: OSLIST
Datum: 04/27/04 19:24:15
Aan: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Onderwerp: Mergers and acquisitions?
 
Does anyone have experience using OS as a facilitative tool for a corporate
merger of two
similar-sized companies (~100 each - if numbers matter)? Or anything similar
 The actual
merger, of course, is a fait accompli, so it's not "if" but "how" - how to
bring two
groups, two cultures, two up-until-now competitors together as one family.
What are the
issues that need to be discussed, what needs to happen to create synergies
and not go
through months of dysfunctionality?
 
It seems to me OS would be a healthy way to go about doing this - though I
may be wrong?
 
I'd appreciate hearing stories/thoughts.
 
Thanks,
Phil Culhane
 
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