As businesses look to consolidate over the coming years, merger- and acquisition-based strategies are likely to dominate the discussions of many Boards and Executive Teams.

However, the intended gains are often elusive. Post-acquisition integration often proves harder than it looked on paper: strategic goals remain unclear or poorly articulated; the new leadership team struggles to set a 'joined-up' example; and middle-management are left with competing loyalties and feeling disenfranchised. More generally, there's often an unwillingness to deal with lurking 'territorial tensions' or cultural difficulties that ultimately destroy attempts to look to the future and collaborate fully.

Integral Change Consulting offers a suite of supportive minimal interventions to enable leadership teams to:

• Build teamwork at the top
  
  
• Clarify the merger or acquisition journey plan and support its implementation
  
  
• Engage people and channel their energies into outcomes
  
  
• Settle key teams and galvanise strong teamwork
  
  
• Sort and strengthen cross-organisational working and helping to grow a unifying culture
  
  
• Support individual leaders to step up their capability in response to big challenges.

For a useful tool which supports organistions in avoiding the traps that tend to lead to destruction of value rather than enhacing value, see our checklist  Mergers and Acquisitions - Key Questions for Leaders.

Also see Chapter 6, Mergers and acquisitions, Making Sense of Change Management, 2009, 2nd Edition, Esther Cameron and Mike Green for more information, particularly on planning and implementing merger and acquisition activity.