Merger Mania What will a merger mean to you? (In The Trenches).

IN THIS COLUMN...

Almost as worrisome as job tenure to survivors of corporate mergers is whether they will be able to work under a completely new set of assumptions. What effect will the merger of two different corporate cultures have on effectiveness, satisfaction and promotability? Even people who believe they know the partner's culture almost as well as their own are often surprised at what happens after a merger takes place. Find out what's likely to happen in a merger by asking a few key questions.

Is it really a merger?

Most mergers are actually takeovers, not the joining of equals. The stronger partner in the deal will obliterate the subordinate partner's culture as quickly as possible.

Only political amateurs believe it when top management talks about going forward together. Savvy people do not.

If they want to stay and suspect their company is the subordinate partner, savvy employees shake the grapevine to find out as much as possible about the dominant culture. They also confirm their assumption about who will lead.

Who's the dominate partner

Even in a true merger, merger partners are never equal. There is always a dominant or senior partner.

You can assess this by looking at why the merger occurred in the first place. What were the pros and cons for each organization? Which benefited most? The one who gained the most is usually the dominant partner.

Even if the new CEO is recruited from outside the merging organizations, the dominant culture will influence the subordinate culture.

Size isn't always definitive. One organization's management may have a stronger vision, the dominant market position or the least duplication of products or services.

If the term "rescued" is applied to one side, that side is the junior partner.

An irony in many mergers is that the junior partner may have been more profitable and more prestigious than the senior partner.

How different are the cultures?

Most people suppose that after the merger is completed and the obvious cuts are made, harmony will reign. "We'll all be one happy family this time next year."

Unfortunately, this is never true.

Two cultures cannot coexist as equals. The greater the differences in the cultures, the more quickly the differences will come to the surface and begin to excite the grapevine and instigate political action.

A sales-driven culture that meets a marketing-driven culture will be a battleground even after top management sets a clear direction. If the sales-driven culture prevails, the marketing people will pour out of the new entity. They've been demoted -- no matter what top management says.

Only after 50 to 70 percent of the employees in both organizations are gone and replaced by outsiders will a common culture emerge.

This can take years.

In the meantime, individuals, departments, and divisions will fight over budgets, visions, operating procedures and everything else -- both monumental and petty.

Who are the survivors?

One of the most interesting top management strategies to emerge from the nationwide merger mania is not trying to anchor key people before the merger, but waiting to see who stays.

We've never met a manager who would admit that either partner took a wait-and-see attitude, but how else can the occasional randomness of who survives be explained?

Top management on both sides counts heavily on panic-driven departures to thin the ranks and weed out many who can't -- or won't -- accept a new culture.

This strategy also saves millions in severance, not to mention tons of bad publicity. If people get other jobs, they rarely complain about the company's bad treatment.

How involved are the remaining troops?

Some companies are bought and sold several times with no true merger taking place.

This happens in large multinational corporations with divisions so isolated or specialized that not much changes regardless of who owns them. Troops in these organizations may be indifferent to the change in ownership.

But this is not true when the two organizations have duplications in many areas. In that case, the troops are deeply involved and partisan. Promotion decisions will include such issues as, "Is he from the XYZ side of the house or the ABC side?"

The desire to balance power delays cultural change.

If you're working in a department that is a mix of people from two organizations, you are going to be expected to help create a blended culture. Do the unthinkable: ask the other side how it does a particular task, explain how you do it, then lead in the direction that works best.

A post-merger organization is a great laboratory for testing new ideas because controls are far weaker. If you have ideas, you could become a star even if you were just one of the troops in the old culture. By proposing new ways to do things, your boss will believe you accepted the changes and will play on the new team.

Make your plans based on what's good for your career.

If you think you can't live with the culture you see emerging, start your negotiations for severance immediately. Our experience says that the best packages come before the deal is inked.

After the merger, money will be scarcer.