What could have made ‘The Merger’ smooth?

During my stint at Howe Robinson Partners, I happened to come across a situation at which if I look back now, numerous Large Scale Intervention practices strike my mind which would have made the ‘then’ transition much smoother. In 2015, the shipping division of ICAP Shipping (India & Dubai) got merged with Howe Robinson Group Pte Ltd to form Howe Robinson Partners. As simple it may seem in a single sentence, the process was extremely complex, affecting both companies’ operating environment.

Digging deeper into the process, the entire merger and restructuring can be evaluated on the six Change Dimensions mentioned in the grid. The gap in Management intentions and Employee interpretation is recorded below:

CHANGE DIMENSION	WHAT MANAGEMENT INTENDED TO DO	WHAT THE WORKFORCE INTERPRETED
Organisational Goal	Howe Robinson Partners wanted to expand their global presence and enter India and Dubai market by merging with ICAP Shipping.	Howe Robinson being such big a player in the shipping niche wanted to acquire India and Dubai office to limit the operations to mere R&D, completely eliminating the spot market operations.
Management Structure & Leadership	Management wanted to get a ‘New Face’ to lead the new entity while re-structuring the organisational structure with well-defined and renewed roles/JD’S	The possibility of the ‘New Face’ not being of Indian origin, the workforce had a fear of not being able to connect and understood by the new CEO.
Operational Focus	Management wanted to maximise on its global offices’ strength collectively, interlink the office in such a way that the geographical distance and global outreach becomes an advantage.	The workforce had apprehensions regarding their scale of operations getting restricted to India and Dubai Markets which would be a huge cut on the deal making opportunities.
Process Restructuring	Management wanted to have a unique IT System integration across global offices to bring uniformity and synchronisation in day to day operations.	The workforce was resistant to the proposed IT Systems change, fearing its complexity, ease to trade with global counterparts and reduced performance.
Reward and Remuneration	Management wanted to update employee contracts as per the global norms which involved salary review and promotions as per the market standards.	The workforce feared layoff’s and had a lot of insecurities about their salaries, bonuses and designation.
Feedback Mechanism	Management wanted to fool proof the change they had implemented and gain employee confidence by implementing 360-degree feedback mechanism to measure the loopholes and gaps between management delivery and employee expectation and satisfaction	The workforce was unsure of the confidentiality of the feedback mechanism and wasn’t as open as expected in providing their view points at the time when appraisals were also happening simultaneously.

Studying the above premises, the major inference which can be drawn is that there was a huge communication gap between the management and the employees. The complexity of the process blinded the employees from seeing the big picture. Due to lack of flow of information and guidelines from the top management, the grapevine networks created a lot of unwanted information solely on the basis of unsurety and ambiguity. With each passing day without formal communication, comprehending the reality became more and more difficult. Lack of effective planning and strategizing lead to partial disclosure of information both within and outside the environment, hampering the public image of the company. Due to absence of damage control mechanism and efficient Change Management system in place, there was huge personnel loss which further damaged the environment within the organisation.

The above loopholes in communication of information and inefficiently planned change mechanism lays the premises for an Organisation Development Consultant’s Intervention. Had the changes and information ‘Pre’ and ‘Post’ the merger been planned and implemented in a well thought way, keeping in mind the internal and external stakeholders along with the market sentiment, the merger could be a much efficient and fruitful activity. The fact that effectiveness and success is not a function of one individual or department or process but more than a sum of individual characters stands effective here.

Possible areas of Consultant’s Intervention could be on the following levels:

1-    Individual Level: A proper one on one interaction with the employees discussing about the merger, the reasons driving the merger, its impact on employees’ career, job security, future prospects of growth in the organisation, change in everyday functionality of operations, clarity on future Superior-Subordinate/Reporting relationships, managements plan on ways to increase inter office coordination, individual’s opinion on the said change, his feedback on previous management practices, his expectations from the new management, clarity on managements’ expectations from the employee and interview on similar lines.

2-    Group Level: Interaction and interviews with the teams in various functions, helping them foresee the expected change in the work patterns post the merger, clarity on expected team targets, ways to increase coordination and harmony within same teams across global offices, creating a sense of unity and no rivalry among global offices, helping them understand and work efficiently on the new technology by elaborating the benefits and providing training sessions.

3-    Organisational and Societal Level: Studying the internal and external premises, studying the history of past mergers in the shipping industry, analysing the market and finalising the right time to implement the change, communicating the information to the stakeholders in a formal way, planning corporate image management and restructuring after the change implementation, more in-house meeting to control and manage the aftermath.