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Between 40-50% of marriages end in divorce. In the corporate world the failure rate is higher; 70% of mergers, according to a study by Bain, fail to increase shareholder value. It is estimated that 70% of joint ventures fail, too.

When couples divorce, the most common complaint is: he said he loved me for who I am… then he tried to change me.

If a marriage of equals is rare between two people, it is almost non-existent between two organisations. Even if the value of each is about the same, one culture will predominate, one leader will prevail. One plus one in the corporate world rarely equals even two, unless a leaf is taken out of the successful marriages handbook and in addition to the me there is us.

Spreadsheets don't make profits, people do and when the workplace culture suddenly shifts, a sense of loss often overwhelms any hope of gain.

Marriages made in hell

Corporate post-mortems reveal that the two main causes of deceased mergers are poor strategy and clashing cultures.

The Daimler Chrysler merger looked good on paper. Engineers saw shared platforms, accountants counted their savings. But putting together quality-obsessed Germans with freewheeling Americans resulted in a turbo-charged destruction of value. Very soon the combined operation was worth less than Daimler before the marriage from hell.

In troubled times, cash-strapped businesses desperately search for their shining knights, whilst trolls and ogres track down the tired and unwary. In South Africa, the need for transformation has led to a plethora of shotgun and arranged marriages, false promises, unrealistic expectations, bitter feuds and internal collapse.

Joint ventures have their bear-traps, too. Insufficient planning leads to issues of who does what and no clear way to resolve disputes. Insufficient capitalization means the fighting starts as the money runs out. There is lack of leadership & commitment - let's focus on the business we own. Underlying all this, 70% of the time, is a deep cultural divide papered over with a dry MOU.

There are happy ever after scenarios waiting to be realized, too. So while your head counts potential savings and tenders, listen to your gut. If it rumbles, be very cautious. Invest as much time investigating and aligning cultural issues as you do financial, legal and business systems.

Begin by comparing and contrasting the cultures of the organisations. Plan their integration, seeking how one plus one can equal three. Then communicate relentlessly and celebrate your early victories.

Cultural audits

If one company has a flat structure and the other is multi-layered, are you mating a crocodile with a giraffe? If both companies are lumbering behemoths, do you expect two dinosaurs will produce sprightly gazelles? Some companies are autocratically run, some are democracies. If the pairing takes one culture, expect mass resignations from the other, if it tries to blend both cultures it can easily end up as the bird that cannot fly, nor run fast enough to elude its predators.

Similar issues arise when a company with an individualistic culture - every man for himself - merges with a corporate with a collectivist culture - the group leads. (This clash is often seen within single organisations where individualistic management battle collectivist unions.)

There are masculine and feminine cultures. The former is driven by competitiveness, ambition and material possessions; the latter by relationships and care. Mars and Venus on the factory floor or around the boardroom table lead to more heat than light.

There are new, digitally intelligent companies that are eyed enviously by larger, older corporates looking for an injection of young blood, while clinging to their bureaucratic ways; and there are shooting stars who seek the knowledge and relationships of elder brethren without wanting to shed their maverick cloaks.

Some companies live by their values, some have values on the website, not in their hearts and minds, whilst others think this soft stuff is a waste of time. Unless the value is - more cash to us sooner.

Cultural audits reveal the fits and misfits. They give you, more than any spreadsheet, the cues for success.

1+1 = 3

Mergers and acquisitions are far more fun and adrenaline charged than building customers, one by one. While the top line is stressed pre-deal, the bottom line must cough up immediate benefits, meaning in 90% of cases jobs are shed. You don't need two sets of CEOs, head offices, accounts departments, receptionists and office cleaners. Also, the costs of doing the deal must be amortized, fast.

Now you have two incongruent cultures, a rampaging corporate body slasher and expectant shareholders. Your job is to turn a vicious circle into an ascending spiral.

If retrenchments are unavoidable, follow Machiavelli's advice - cut once, even if it is deep - then start the healing process. Misguided altruism often results in death by many small cuts. A culture of fear and mistrust builds up; your best people leave, others hide and plot. As well as bringing in career councillors for the retrenched, spend time with the survivors. Many will wonder why colleagues and friends have gone instead of them; guilt and sub-conscious under-performance can set in.

When the cuts are being made, focus on the cultural upside. What shared vision and values, what all-embracing philosophy can make 1+1=3? For instance, as Marcia Klein notes in Sunday Times Business Times, the culture of Anglo-American is a patriarchal collective, there is one Anglo, with the culture of Xstrata being a fiercely individualistic meritocracy. Unless this deep divide is imaginatively and pragmatically bridged, the proposed merger is doomed. Invest as much time on the soft stuff as the hard stuff, because when you look after people, they will look after your profits.

A coherent culture is far too important to be left to executives' spare time. It should be Job 1 for one of the top three people in your organisation - or for a proposed merger, a heavyweight from each team. Devote a realistic budget to this as well; spending more on legal fees than corporate health gives you a watertight case for disaster

Communicate & celebrate

In the ad world it is common cause that three impressions or more are needed before a message is received even though these messages are researched for impact and 20 years of an average South African salary are spent on making a single TV commercial, so do not presume your culture messages penetrate the e-mail haze.

Rather treat your employees as your most important customers. Communicate your new culture memorably and repeatedly. Jack Welch, wherever he went, expounded the GE boundaryless philosophy until he says he was sick of the sound of his own voice. He backed up his rhetoric with action like the GE Work-Out that brings people from all parts of a process together to find systemic solutions. Effective communication is words backed by deeds.

In the time of change, as confusion and cynicism eat away at your base, as fear of loss battles hope of gain, identify then celebrate early victories. It can be new business, peer recognition or a job well done. It can be an internal award for employees who best demonstrate your values in action. It needn't be a big cash reward, recognition is more important.

A service company we worked with had winning as a value and a quarterly framed certificate awarded to the most productive consultant. Quarter after quarter, Anton won, until in one fiercely contested period, he was beaten on the last day by a jubilant John. I asked John what it meant to him.

My office is next to Anton's he explained and I know he's an early starter, so next morning I came in early too. I brought the largest nail from my workshop and as I slowly hammered it in, I knew Anton heard every hammer-blow and he knew I was hanging up my certificate. He wasn't invincible any more. That was one of the best feelings of my life.

Critique privately, praise publicly, is a fundamental building block of culture; sadly the opposite is common practice.

A collective culture should celebrate collectively. Another service company had a large drum in reception. Whenever new business or an award was won, ritual drumbeats reverberated throughout the Sandton office block. Toyota has a culture of Kaizen, meaning ongoing small quality improvements involving everyone and they award modest cash prizes for suggestions that can be implemented. Winners usually share these prizes with their teams - a true collectivist culture may be decreed from the top down, but can only succeed from the bottom up.

A shared vision and common values are more binding than any piece of paper.
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. Antoine de Saint-Exupery.