The Challenge
As part of a private equity group acquiring and consolidating two portfolio companies, the executive leadership of NewCo needed to quickly integrate the acquisition and maximize the opportunities provided by its market consolidation. However, the challenge was that the transaction brought together brands that directly competed against each other. Moreover, the underlying cultures of each entity was very different. Working with a new strategic plan, the management team had to develop a unified culture that respected the brand differences, yet could collectively execute at the speed of private equity ownership. As part of this, it was critical that the leadership team rally to align around a common mission and vision for the new consolidated company and define its own norms for working together in addition to developing a culture framework.
The ExCo Group Support
The ExCo Group provided support post-acquisition by assessing the current culture of the two companies to determine cultural similarities and differences. The ExCo Group’s approach included partnering closely with the CEO and CHRO to get grounded in the context of the strategy and recent acquisition. As part of this grounding, The ExCo Group completed an extensive set of interviews with each leadership team member and other key individuals along with the use of select tools to gather insights on the strategy, culture, and the current operating environment of the organization. Information gathered in the interviews was used to shape a finalized agenda for an ExCo Group-facilitated team workshop and then several follow-up sessions.
Impact
The ExCo Group worked with the leadership team to:
- Clearly define what success looked like for the organization
- Redefine the mission and vision for the company
- Develop a clear communication plan for the mission and vision
- Identify the values of the company and define them using specific behaviors that each member of the leadership team committed to demonstrate
Utilizing the output from the one-day team workshop, the team was able to cascade the new mission, vision and values deep into the organization. They rallied around a True North, and all committed to partner with each other in accordance with the selected behaviors in order to role-model the desired culture.
Additionally, one of the key outcomes that has helped carry the company through the challenging times of Covid-19 was the values they selected, which they live and breathe. These values were overwhelmingly positively received by the different entities. As such, they have helped to unify the company even in difficult times. The new mission and vision were unifying and the simplification of the communication of the strategy was a key factor in aligning the organization to execute against an ambitious strategy.