This entry is a little snarky….(you have been warned).
I just read this article on Kim Kardashian’s divorce via Yahoo! News:
“On Oct. 31, 2011, the world was blindsided by the news that reality TV star Kim Kardashian was divorcing her husband, National Basketball Association star Kris Humphries. The couple had married on Aug. 20, 2011, in a storybook wedding worth $10 million. A mere 72 days later, however, Kardashian had filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
Fortunately, the couple had a prenuptial agreement in place, so each party is likely to walk away with their finances intact.”
If only Mergers had Prenups
If Mergers & Acquisition transactions had prenuptial agreements, they too could keep their finances intact and decide after less than a quarter together that the corporate “marriage” just wasn’t right. They could break it off, split the difference and carry on.
Problem is – they can’t.
A M&A decision is a major change initiative prompting a series of business decisions that impact thousands of employees and corporate shareholders. With a success rate (30-50%, depending on the study) worse or comparable to the American divorce rate (50%), it’s amazing more buying firms don’t invest more heavily in the people side of mergers. This is also considering M&A “irreconcilable differences” typically come down to corporate cultures not getting along (process-oriented conglomerate vs nimble startup? Well, duh!).
Predict and Prevent M&A Corporate Culture Irreconcilable Differences
Just like Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries may have appreciated knowing their marriage would inevitably fail in less than 6 months and saving the $10 million spent on the wedding, executives may have appreciated knowing in advance the delta between the two merging cultures to reduce risk and plan accordingly.
Talent Meters Visualizes Corporate Cultures in the Aggregate
It’s time to predict and prevent M&A disasters before they occur by measuring and comparing the two corporate cultures side-by-side. Doing this in advance will enable firms to pre-empt corporate culture differences and predict the impact on performance. Talent analytics technology exists today that does this, so unless the idea of millions (or more) in lost revenue, lost market opportunity, and falling behind your competition sounds appealing to your business prospects, what are you waiting for?
Mike Kennedy is a Technical Evangelist at Talent Analytics, Corp. He can be reached via mike@talentanalytics.com.
