Interesting piece from Mercer looking at some cultural and people issues across the three main areas of Europe, US and Asia. Most intriguing for me is that the diagnostic capability around culture is still perceived as weak.
- How Circumspect Should Quantitative Forecasters Be?
- Agile – A change in methodology or something much deeper and altogether more challenging?
Categories: Complex transformation, Human Capital, Mergers & acquisitions, Post merger integration
Tags: Behavioural change, consulting, Cross border, culture, Merger integration
Inarticulate ramblings of a management consultant 
I think it is increasingly important to look at culture but perhaps as part of due diligence. That being said I have come across many organisations who have carried out M&A transactions with little understanding of what they have actually bought. Especially when it is a smaller transaction. Perhaps more time carrying out due diligence and at that time gaining a better insight into culture and People challenges would be a good thing.
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Agree completely Tim…over the last few years, I’ve started to recognize that whilst the primary place for value destruction is in the post deal arena, there are definitely gaps and challenges in the pre deal / due diligence space. Doing proper, ‘hypothesis’ based dd is in my view, still rare.
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It is weak because organizations refuse to embrace what matters to people instead of revenue. Process is not the key but integrating people’s abilities plus experiences and growth begins from there.
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Agreed and I appreciate your comment. The big challenge though is making sure that whatever they bring is measured sensibly…one of the key challenges is to avoid the ‘soft’ accusation when in fact the people challenges are the hardest of all. That requires intelligent quantitative measurement, which is helped by these kinds of surveys.
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