Chapter 4 Defining culture for the specific purpose of the M&A transaction As noted earlier, there is not one agreed-upon definition of culture, but we will show how these serial acquirers overcame that initial obstacle. First, you have to get the culture But, even if leaders recognize the elephant out of the room before you importance of these issues, and can move forward. In M&A circles, believe me, that’s not always the case, culture may be the most widely used they still struggle with the relevance business term without an agreed of this work early in the deal life definition. It means different things cycle while other initiatives are going to different people, even in the same on at the same time requiring their organization. That’s not good; it is time, effort and attention. They need confusing and wastes leaders’ time. to know how important, urgent and We can’t expect leaders to spend impactful any recommendations are. their time on theoretical debates or We still have the John Reeds of this trying to provide solutions to broad world to convince.” generalizations. Our leaders can Corporate Development, Participant responding to act on specifics; they can’t act on the quote above generalizations.” Corporate Development Develop a framework to control the The group developed this framework to house these conversation (refer the culture framework PDF) concepts and illustrate visually the issues and questions The first step is to define the scope of the M&A cultural leaders need to think about, but also so the group itself could investigations using a framework to initiate the conversation. dig into deeper conversations without getting stuck on each The framework helps leaders understand the cultural firm’s way of describing culture. concepts and elements and their importance to the transaction’s success in a simple yet comprehensive and However, it is important to understand that this is an visual way, but it needs to be balanced with a heavy M&A “aggregated” model, and each firm has its own variation educational element to help remove the risk of generalizations suitable for its own company-specific purposes, which is or academic debates infiltrating the discussions. This keeps adapted from how each firm currently describes its culture. the conversation focused on solving problems and issues in the business situation at hand: the deal itself. 10 willistowerswatson.com