The most important factor to succeed in a Merger and Acquisition

2020 will be a year high on mergers and acquisitions (Deloitte, The state of the deal: M&A trends 2020). 83% of them will fail (Forbes). Why? Most executives underestimate the importance of the clash between two different company cultures, and therefore they will not assess each culture's DNA and prepare a strategic plan for merging those cultures into a new one. Commonly, every employee will continue working with their own company's unwritten rules and will distrust any new colleague taking decisions differently based on their different company culture.

We could argue that c-executives are oblivious to the forces behind their employee's behavior. However, they are not, as 95% of executives (McKinsey & Company, April 2019) describe the cultural fit to be critical to the success of integrating merged or acquired organizations—yet a full 25% of these leaders cite a lack of cultural cohesion and alignment as the primary reason for failure.

To avoid entering the ranks of the 83% who fail their M&A, leaders need to understand the key similarities and differences between the two organizations’ cultures.

Then, they need the right plans to create proven conditions for both cultures to integrate successfully.

If employees don't trust each other, they will not collaborate nor put their efforts into succeeding the integration. Assessing each companies' culture DNA with a scientific measurement offers insights into the evolution of every key element and will successfully detect engagement and attrition trends. 

In times of change, employees are likely to feel a sense of uncertainty about their long-term place in the organization. This fires their brain's center of fear, robbing their energy and resources to access brain areas in charge of complex decision making. As a result, employees react in a defensive mode, seeing those coming from a different culture as potential enemies, which in turn hinders the possibilities of collaborating and working towards business results. Assessing both cultures to see commonalities and differences, and putting in place the right plans to make both cultures blend successfully is key to M&A success.

Silvia Garcia, CEO

sg@feellogic.com

Happiness fuels success: Harvard says Face to Face requests get 34 times more "YES" than emails

If you want to be more successful, invest in face-to-face relationships versus email.
Harvard recently proved that participants had 34 more chances of attaining their objective when they made their request face-to-face rather than when they sent an email. Curiously, or not that much, before the experiment, participants thought that email would be the best way of communicating allowing them to be able to convince with a well-thought argumentation.

Read the Harvard article here

Are you also privileging email versus face-to-face communication? It might be because of a social belief that ignores the science of happiness and, instead of helping you, is drawing your chances to sell your arguments. Let me explain why.

Our society values rationality over emotions. It is so since Descartes, a French mathematician, and philosopher of the 17th century, formulated the "Cartesian method" that praised the mind as the solution for knowing the truth and that can be summarized in his famous quote "I think, therefore I am."  Although this approach has enormous benefits, believing that individuals are rational beings and that we take decisions based on facts can prove us all wrong.  Rafael Nadal won Roland Garros despite coming back from injuries and being technically over the age where tennis men retire. You probably dated this man or girl that your mother gave you reasons not to. You might even be married to him/her!

When we use or pretend that others take decisions solely based on rational criteria, we are scientifically wrong; Neuroscience has discovered that our mind uses both emotions and real observations to take a decision. If we persist on using solely rational argumentation, we will not be using our full potential of persuasion, forgetting that emotions also play a critical role in decision making.  We should say: "I feel and think, therefore I am."

Now, coming back to the Harvard research. How do you think we can achieve to arise more positive emotions to influence others: by email or face-to-face? 
Face-to-face interviews offer the perfect moment for anyone to send our interlocutor a lot of emotional information. How friendly we are, how much we care for them, how truthful we are, and much other relevant information. Our interlocutor will use, aware or unaware of it, all these emotions together with more rational information, to decide whether to say yes or no to our request.

So next time you want to harvest a YES from someone, think of meeting face to face and be mindful of the whole potential of the positive emotions partnering with your thinking!

The science of happiness has proven that those individuals who are happier are also more successful. It is not that they are successful and that makes them happy. It is because they are happy that they are more successful.

I created Feel:)Logic to help companies measure happiness, and set the conditions for their employees to thrive. Within six months, they achieve higher customer satisfaction, employee engagement, retention and, get better bottom line results.