Combining Corporate Cultures – Your Recognition Strategy Needs Some SNA

Mergers and acquisitions are common.  But they can be risky.  Therefore, a lot of effort and work goes into looking at financial data and systems/technology issues as well as branding and marketing synergies.  What isn’t obvious – or at least talked about – is the need for understanding the social networks at play in the companies being considered by the buyers/sellers.  At least it hasn’t been obvious in the stuff I see in my reader and in my ongoing searches.

Example – 1+1+1= 1

A little while ago, we received a call from a company that was soon to be going through a “merger.”  The parent company owned three companies they were combining into one big entity.  Each of the companies had their own culture and “way of doing things.”  The person who contacted me wanted to talk through how to structure a recognition strategy so that they could begin reinforcing the “new” culture of the organization.  Smart move on his part.  I applaud him for thinking about it before the merger and not after the merger – when the problems would have been bigger and more difficult to address.

Each of the three companies had their own recognition program in place.  Each had their strengths and weaknesses.  Each was tied to the individual company mission/values.  In their own right – each company had done a good job.  The client wanted to know how to combine the three programs.

Our Recommendation… Step One – Social Network Analysis

We recommended – before any program design work was started – they do a social network analysis of the employees to find out who is connected to whom.  We wanted to identify who in the three companies where both connected internally and externally.  We wanted to know who our potential allies and foes would be when the program was finally designed.  We wanted to know who had real social influence – not just “org chart” influence.

I say “we recommended” because Josh Letourneau (follow him on twitter @jletourneau) from Knight & Bishop and I collaborated on the proposal (mostly so I could take advantage of his smarts – I really got the best part of that pairing!)  Josh does great stuff in the SNA world and we thought we could combine his skills identifying the players with our skills designing the program with the players.

Josh and I explained that if we could identify these “internal and external connectors” we could leverage their influence in the design of the program, evangelizing the new program structure and connecting within and across the three merging organizations and increase adoption of the program.  These “connected” folks are critical.  They are the ones that others will look to for opinion.  And if they are connected both within and across organizations – they can have maximum impact.  There are always those folks in a company whose opinion drives other’s opinions.  These are the folks you want to know about.

Step Two – Enlist the Connectors as Co-Designers

Our goal was two-fold – first, use the connectors as our ad hoc “design team” so that we could get their buy-in on the program design/strategy.  We all know that no one thinks their own baby is ugly.  Having this group be part of the design process ensures the final program will be something they will speak positively about with other employees.  They won’t go out and say “hey, jump into this program – I designed it and it’s terrible.”  Not happening.  They will sell this positively because it is theirs.

Second – having people who connect within and across company org charts gives us a big leg up on the overall adoption of the new cultural norms.  They are our “virus carriers” so to speak.  If we had only picked people that connected within an organization the new culture virus might not spread to the other companies involved.  However, by picking those folks who are both connecting within and between – we get the best of both worlds and we can expect the positive work-of-mouth to be big.

Don’t Play the Game Until After you Pick Your Players

So the moral of this little story – If you’re trying to create a single company culture that is the result of a merger of cultures – find your trusted connectors first and enlist them in the design.  Don’t design and then deploy without involving your best line of offense.

By-The-Way – this is a good strategy for any major change in any initiative at your company.  Enlist the people who influence others but don’t necessarily show up as influencers on your org charts.  Truth is, many of those you would expect to be positive influencers are really negative sources of influence. 

Plenty of companies have that mean, crabby, socially-crippled Sr. VP of Ops that when he/she says something everyone laughs and assumes it must be wrong.  Don't want them "selling" the program.

Find the real influencers before trying to influence.  Just sayin…