Surviving super merges
by Margot Cairnes
We are in the era of the super merger: BP/Amoco, Citibank/Travellers,
BT/Deutche Bank etc. Lumbering giants across the globe are getting even bigger. For those
employed by companies rushing headlong into corporate marriages, these mergers are
revolutionising their lives.
Some people are finding they no longer have jobs. Others are being dislocated. When BP Oil
Europe merged with Mobil Oil Europe many executives transferred from one company to the
other. For many this meant leaving a company they had been with since school - that is for
periods of 20, 30 or even more years. One Mobil secondee to BP Oil Europe told me: "I
have been so much a company man. Mobil corporate colours were red and blue. These were the
colours that ran through my veins. Now after 30 years service you cut me and I have to bleed
green and gold."
For those who retain their jobs there is the challenge of acclimatising to a new culture,
new workmates, new systems and new procedures. For many Australian executives this may well
mean having to forge relationships with people thousands of kilometres away. Lobbying to
have your part of the organisation retained, looked after or sold with dignity can call for
hundreds of hours flying around the globe to meet new owners. For executives in outposts
like Australia, merging often means negotiating new terms of employment with strangers. So
on top of grieving for their lost colleagues, fretting for their job security, having to
learn a whole new way of operating and fighting to retain their right to do business,
executives from merging companies are also highly likely to be suffering from jetlag.
Spending time discussing with such executives I am constantly struck by the impact these
changes have on people's thinking. Tired, grieving executives who are fighting for their
jobs and the existence of companies they have built rarely think or act at their best. The
temptation to revert to reactionary, kneejerk behaviour is huge. The strategic skills that
led to prior success seem to fade as they fight exhaustion, chaos and fear.
In this environment how can profits be greatly increased, strategic improvements be made and
enduring relationships be forged? How does the business continue to function at all? When I
have asked executives from merged companies these questions they admit they are stressed to
superhuman limits. They then start babbling out a rationale in some strange economic jargon
that obviously helps them to make sense of the insanity of their situation. Finally they
note that everybody else is in the same boat. A picture comes to mind of lemmings following
each other over a cliff. Don't think, don't question, and don't ask why. Just follow the
leader. That seems to be the way to survive.
If survival means keeping a highly paid corporate job in the short term they are probably
right. If survival means staying healthy, staying married, staying sane and doing good
business then one has to question the sanity behind merger mania.
Copyright ã Margot Cairnes
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