Mergers: Leadership, Performance and Corporate Health (INSEAD Business Press)

"Healthy mergers are commonly hindered by easily avoidable mistakes: poorly-defined strategic fit, under-resourcing of the integration team and lack of attention from senior management during the integration process. In this essential new book, the authors recognize the importance of a strong managerial discipline and extensive integration experience in counteracting these problems. This book offers fresh, practical ideas about the role of CEOs and senior management in post-merger integration, and suggests innovative, realistic approaches to accomplish strong post-merger success."-- Unedited summary from book How can CEOs and other senior managers define a merger leadership role for themselves that adds significant value to the work of integration teams? While merger catastrophes continue to grab headlines, a small but growing number of companies have learned to avoid the common mistakes and to reliably achieve respectable outcomes for their mergers and acquisitions. These companies have built deep integration capabilities that give them a major head start each time. However, many of the CEOs of these advanced integrators remain dissatisfied. Their mergers may have been successful in the narrow terms of synergy realization and other short-term project goals, but from a wider perspective they were less healthy for their organization than they could have been. Particularly frustrating for many of these CEOs is the fact that they remain unsure what they themselves could do differently the next time. The authors of the present volume have thoroughly researched this critical but widely neglected need. Drawing on their own extensive integration experience, on that of almost thirty executives, on the systematic analysis of 167 mergers, and on cutting edge academic research, they identify five common leadership challenges to be tackled for the achievement of what we call 3corporate health4, the most thorough and sustainable test of merger success: 1) Create the new company at the top before the close 2) Place the merger communications within the context of the corporate story 3) Develop the performance culture needed for the new company 4) Become an active champion for crucial external stakeholders 5) Identify the need for and undertake integration-critical learning in real time Cover......Page 2 Contents......Page 7 About This Book......Page 9 1 The Elusive Healthy Merger......Page 13 2 Creating the New Company at the Top......Page 27 3 Communicating the Corporate Story......Page 43 4 Establishing a New Performance Culture......Page 57 5 Championing External Stakeholders......Page 75 6 Fostering Momentum and Learning......Page 93 7 Mastering the Language of Integration......Page 114 8 Assuming Personal Leadership......Page 130 Notes......Page 135 Bibliography......Page 144 C......Page 147 I......Page 150 L......Page 151 P......Page 152 S......Page 153 T......Page 154 W......Page 155 Palgrave Macmillan Cover 2 Contents 7 About This Book 9 1 The Elusive Healthy Merger 13 2 Creating the New Company at the Top 27 3 Communicating the Corporate Story 43 4 Establishing a New Performance Culture 57 5 Championing External Stakeholders 75 6 Fostering Momentum and Learning 93 7 Mastering the Language of Integration 114 8 Assuming Personal Leadership 130 Notes 135 Bibliography 144 Index 147 A 147 B 147 C 147 D 150 E 150 F 150 G 150 H 150 I 150 J 151 L 151 M 152 N 152 O 152 P 152 Q 153 R 153 S 153 T 154 U 155 V 155 W 155 ISBN-13:,9780230019720 ISBN-13: 9780230019720 Drawing on their own extensive integration experience, the systematic analysis of 167 mergers, and cutting edge academic research, the authors of this book identify the common leadership challenges to be tackled for the achievement of what we call 'corporate health', the most thorough and sustainable test of merger success.

When two compnaies merge the perfomance of the surviving company can rapidly decline, but this book shows how a strong and healthy merger can be achieved.