Today, we’re introducing our MAD Change series, a practical guide to managing Mergers, Acquisitions, and Divestitures.
It’s aimed at line managers, and provides three interlocking models, all of which are based on tested materials. Together, these provide practical guidance on how to effectively define the phases, map the paths and manage the pace of change.
As Quadrotech’s Director of Enterprise Migrations, I’ve worked on many MAD projects and am familiar with both the technical and organizational challenges that arise. Alongside me throughout this series is MJ Flanagan, a business coach and cultural change specialist with great insight into managing the ‘human factor’ of MAD activity.
In this first video, we provide some context and introduce the whole series, giving you an overview of what to expect over the coming weeks.
Video Transcript
Mike Weaver: Today, we’re in London, kicking off our MAD Change series, helping organizations get through their Merger, Acquisition or Divestiture project. Here at Quadrotech, we help organizations migrate into Office 365 and manage their investment once they’re there.
What people often overlook is a lot of this investment is Merger, Acquisition and Divestiture projects. In a lot of these projects we’ve found that the technical piece actually isn’t really the major challenge, it’s the Org leadership –
MJ Flanagan: The human factor.
Mike: The human factor and the change factor that is really a very large challenge for our clients. So, with that, we’ve teamed up together with Mary Jane from MJ inspire to help us build a leadership framework to help organizations move from Impact to Integration, and get themselves ready for these projects.
So, we’re excited today to kick this off here in London. Why don’t we talk about the model?
MJ: Fantastic. Well, we built the model based on our experience – my 25 years’ experience – working with teams and organizations through their culture and change model.
But what we’ve done is simplified it.
Read more: For Easier Adoption Add Change Management
If you were to go to Amazon today, you’ll find over 5,000 books on the topic, and people are confused. So, we’ve taken a pragmatic approach, one that leaders of all levels – in all large projects – can use.
We’ve split it into three categories.
And within these categories, there’s a seven-phased approach:
- Impact
- Inform
- Investigate
- Influence
- Involve
- Inspire
- Integrate
Beyond that, we’ve looked at the pathway. This is the understanding of human behavior that impacts the overall speed, pace, and success of all projects.
And then the pace of adoption for the new systems, the new processes, and the new culture.
It’s often said that the people element is an HR issue… No, it’s a leadership issue, and this will help all leaders successfully navigate themselves and their teams through this.
Mike: I think what’s nice about the series, as you just mentioned, is a lot of times when we’re going through Merger, Acquisition or Divestiture projects, it’s not a manager that’s running these projects with the integration.
A lot of times it’s a technical team lead or just someone who’s good at technology that runs this integration, so we’ve really tried to make a toolset that works for all levels.
MJ: Absolutely. And this leadership at all levels is about who has to take the lead at the time, not necessarily senior leadership that is useful for them, too.
Mike: Absolutely. So, this is going to be a 7-part video series. plus the introduction that we have today, and it’s going to take you through all of the different aspects of the ‘Impact to Integration’ model. Throughout it, we have other models to help guide you through the change process.
MJ: One thing I would recommend when watching these is to think about your own teams. Each of these models will have a worksheet that you can refer to, and think about where do you sit? Where does your team sit? And where can you take them, or how can you take them to where they need to go?
Mike: So, we hope you enjoy the series.
Leading your team through MAD change
If you’re going through a Merger, Acquisition or Divestiture right now and need some additional help, check out MJ Inspire’s business strategy and coaching services.