Cultural Myopia

It was disappointed to read the response to a question posed to a management guru and his partner who writes a popular syndicated column that I am sure is widely read. The questioner is direct and seeks a response as to why companies do not address cross-cultural issues in merger until it is too late. The answer begins with a bang and the authors say, “Because you cannot number crunch culture”. This opening sentence urged me to read on but I was disappointed as the rest of article went on to describe the “reverse hostage syndrome” or what is described as the acquirers compulsive need to acquire and the complications that arise due to making concessions in the process of being obsessed to close the deal.

The rest of the answer filling almost half the page of a broadsheet has just one more mention of the word culture! I have begun to use the term “Cultural Myopia”, which I am sure, has been used by many in the past and the title derives inspiration from Theodore Levitt’s classic paper “Marketing myopia”. Let me get back to culture before I go off on a tangent like the management guru’s I am referring to! I will start with a work definition of culture from “A Dictionary of Human Resource Management” by Edmund Heery and Mike Noon, Oxford University Press, 2001. “Organizational culture is the set of shared understandings and assumptions the members of an organization have about what the organization is (beliefs), how it ought to be (values), and how organizational members should behave (norms)”. One of the dangerous assumptions most people (IMHO) seem to make is taking a “Unitarian” view of culture assuming that members of an organization or indeed a community must accept the culture without questioning it. This is where I feel lies one of the points of failure and how cultural myopia becomes a barrier in ensuring the harmonious integration of two organizations created by a merger or acquisition.

A majority of managers do not seem to be comfortable dealing with the so-called softer issues like culture and prefer to seek comfort in the operational aspects of business like managing the growth of revenue and profit. There is no doubt that these are of paramount importance but there is a slender chance of two business which for reasons of exploiting “synergy” come together through an acquisition if there is an enormous amount of “allergy” between their people! The allergy syndrome is in part attributable to a lack of understanding of each other’s culture and hence an inability to embrace the differences that will naturally exist in the way people relate to each other in the course of day-to-day business.

It is not possible to conceive of a potpourri approach where multiple cultures melt and the resultant culture is acceptable nor can both cultures exist as is. Therefore, what are the alternatives available? It is not my intent to be prescriptive and suggest some silver bullets as that will be futile. I propose instead some simple measures that companies can put in place to embrace multiple cultures and thrive without the need for a “Unitarian” approach to culture which include:

1) Senior management spending adequate time to understand both the national culture and organizational culture of each other’s organizations
2) Refraining from making any organizational changes other that what is an absolute must till people have made efforts to soak in each others cultures
3) Constitute an integration team that has “culture” as one of the agenda items and not limit the same to functions like IT, Finance, Procurement etc.
4) Mandate right from the word go that a couple of senior management folk will physically move over to the location of the acquired/acquirer
5) Supplement the above at operational levels as well by identifying cross functional/cultural teams that will demonstrate the ability to work shoulder to shoulder
6) Stepping up on communications between the companies and encouraging an open sharing of information between them therefore curbing the development of any SILO mindset
7) The CEO stepping up as the cultural ambassador and reviewing the effectiveness of both sides being able to embrace each others cultures and accept what can be merged and what cannot on a monthly basis

There are no guarantees that steps such as what I describe above will work, all I can say it will increase the probability of ensuring the creation of a “culture of success” that is based on inclusion.