Supporting Cultural Integration Across Two Businesses
Challenge
Our clients are the publishing arms one of the world’s leading Universities. The University had two publishing businesses that operated independently. We were asked to explore the cultural implications of these two businesses merging.
Approach
Our approach had two phases.
Phase 1 involved working with the organisational leadership. The aim of this work was to bring the boards and senior leaders of both organisations together to consider:
- What they wanted to achieve through the merger
- The strengths of each organisation
- The combined strengths of a merged organisation
- The barriers that would hinder effective integration
This was achieved through 1-1 discussions and an interactive workshop that included all the key stakeholders. The success of this workshop led to phase 2.
Phase 2 was a broader engagement with staff from across both organisations to understand attitudes to merger and cultural enablers/barriers. This phase was achieved through focus groups and 1-1 interviews leading to a report setting out strengths, barriers and actions.
Outcome
The organisations have successfully merged and our work was seen as being an important enabler in helping to shape a new culture.
