Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Three recent client situations reminded me that most of us find it very difficult to visualize something intangible like teamwork or a feedback-rich culture or a new business model. It’s difficult to verbally answer the question, “what would you hear people say or see them do that would indicate to you this organization values feedback?” when you don’t have a picture of that possible state in your mind.
So here are two products I’ve come across to help leaders visualize what they are trying to create in their organizations. I recently used the VisualsSpeak product with a team recently designated a “leadership team” as a way to help them describe who they are individually and what they bring to the team. VisualsSpeak co-founder Christine Martell was very helpful in getting me up to speed on how best to structure the exercise and facilitate the discussion. The 200 photos were visually engaging and stimulated some great insights from the individual leaders about their role and contribution to the team. The team indicated that the exercise was very helpful in communicating another dimension of each member’s personality and goals, all of which is going to help them continue to build trust with each other. I think this tool is very adaptable and would work great in any situation where a leadership team is trying to make a possible future as concrete as possible.
By the way, Christine is one of the facilitators who will be at the inaugural VizThink Conference scheduled for late January in San Francisco. I’m going to it to learn more about how I can use the visual world to make leadership and organization development come alive. And because you are fortunate to be a reader of this blog, here is a discount code (ACBT1 – that’s a number one at the end of the code) to use to get $100 off your registration price (it pays to know the right people.)
The second product is a video production company called Silver and Goldie that specialize in the production technique called “machinima.” As they describe it, machinima (a word combining "machine animation" and "cinema") is the art of making real movies in virtual worlds that exist as 3D computer-generated imagery (CGI). They have built a studio in Second Life (a virtual world that has gotten a fair amount of press over the past year or so) and create videos without a lot of the limitations the real world imposes and for a cost that is often much more cost-effective as well. Even if you’re not into the virtual world, I find Second Life fascinating because it is giving us a glimpse of what a 3-D Internet is going to look like. Here’s a sample of a video they did for Intel.
What’s great about this technology and product is that it can help leaders communicate a visual picture of what a future state of the company or its culture will look and sound like. So instead of individual employees needing to fill the usual “picture” vacuum (often a source of some very outrageous but creative rumors), they can instead react to a visualization of what the new business model or culture will look and sound like. And a key to motivating people to move forward into the future is to give them a clear picture of what it will look like. Technology now allows you to visually create the future for a very reasonable price. Very cool.
Leadership Coaching: Helping Them Visualize
M&A Due Diligence: Company Culture from the Inside Looking Out
Friday, November 9, 2007
I read with interest David Harding and Ted Rouse’s guest column in the October 2 issue of the Wall Street Journal entitled “Human Due Diligence.” In it, they discuss the importance of paying attention to what they call human due diligence during the merger and acquisition (M&A) process. Under “human due diligence,” they group understanding the culture of the organization, the roles that individuals play, and the capabilities and attitudes of its people. In this article, most of their discussion focuses on the importance of identifying key employees to be retained during the due diligence process. I agree completely. The new organization will need the right talent and an integrated, consistent leadership voice to make the merger successful. But when it comes to how to factor in the two cultures into a new organization, leaders need to identify something more substantive than “decision making styles” to better understand the role of culture in making or breaking the merger.
Therefore, I would add as a critical element of the due diligence process an assessment of how well each company is doing in executing key management practices that have been proven to be linked to bottom line results. One company may be stronger in some practices than the other. When working with companies who are looking to merge or acquire the other, I would want to know how the two companies measure up individually in executing these management practices. This assessment will tell me where the gaps might be that the leaders will need to address before, during, and after the merger. Otherwise we may be looking at what we call “culture” and find out only later that it was more window dressing than substantive business concerns.
If you have read some of my earlier columns, you know I’m a fan of the Denison Culture Survey for these reasons. This instrument can give both companies a clear picture of how well each of them is doing in four critical areas that reflect both an external and internal focus:
• Adaptability
• Mission
• Consistency
• Involvement
I would be more concerned about a merger that indicates that neither organization has a particularly strong ability to adapt to market changes and customer needs (Adaptability) than how similar are the dress codes or benefits packages. Not to say that the merger should be abandoned but instead such an assessment will present the post-merger challenges and risks more clearly and concretely to the decision makers. In my mind, this makes for a more robust due diligence, focused on the key management practices that will ultimately determine the success of the merger and, more importantly, bottom line business results.
Otherwise, the two companies run the risk of falling into the trap of assuming the acquiring company or larger company’s culture will be the culture of the new company. This could end up perpetuating, or even exacerbating, the deficient management practices in the new company. Better to find out where each company stands during the due diligence process by asking up front the people who see the company’s culture from the inside looking out. No matter how challenging an M&A can be to the executives in charge, it’s that much more complicated in the trenches. All the more reason to concentrate on assessing and understanding the culture from a grass roots perspective. Otherwise, leaders retained will squander their talent by assuming culture means one thing when it really means another.
