Tag Archives: diversity of thought

Mergers and Acquisitions: Diversity and Career Management Considerations

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Mergers and Acquisitions
It seems so often lately when talking to HR leaders in several companies about my career management and diversity consulting services, I am told, “we are all tied up in the middle of integrating a newly acquired company, can you call me back in six months?” And these mergers and acquisitions can come in all shapes and sizes, for example a mega-corporate merger like American Airlines and USAir, or a multi-company strategy like a medium size local bank buying four or five smaller banks. And just last week the US Federal Government approved Lenovo’s $2.3B acquisition of a line of servers from IBM. (Link to detailed Bloomberg article)

And then in this month’s (August 2014) SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) HR Magazine, the cover article was titled “Culture Clash! How to avoid a post-merger identity crisis.” (LINK) One statistic cited was that over 25% of US employees were affected by a merger or acquisition over the past 10 years.

So what is the value proposition for my consulting services within the growing reality of mergers and acquisitions? What impact is there on diversity and career development? A great deal!

First Diversity (link to my services): When two or more companies merge, they will more than likely have two very distinct cultures and probably very different ways of looking at diversity. The corporate commitment to diversity as a key strategy could be at different levels. The companies may have different ways of defining their diversity constituencies. One company may have more emphasis on developing women leaders while the other may be focused on racial minorities. One company may have very advanced practices about the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) workplace and marketplace while the other company may not have even started on that journey.
Diversity of Thought
When companies come together, this is an ideal opportunities to expand diversity horizons by including aspects from both parties. A team can always be made stronger when the tent is widened with more diverse parties coming to the table. And finally, merging companies can immediately tackle one of the hottest new emerging areas, Diversity of Thought. (Some expansion included in past blog – link.) When two companies have differing ways of developing plans and addressing issues, bringing multiple ideas to the table, listening to and honoring various approaches and then combining the best from the various sources will lead to a winning solution.

Second – Career Development (link to my offering.) It is unfortunately when some teams view themselves as winners or losers in acquisitions and good talent that feels undervalued departs. This is the time to honor the best talent from all parties in a merger or acquisition and build a diverse yet coherent team from the best of the best. When I deploy a Total Engagement Career Mapping project with a client that had experienced past mergers and acquisitions, I request they name role models in career development for me to feature from the various original parties. This widens the various examples of career paths I can demonstrate to younger employees, plus it values the leadership coming from various parts of the business.

I look forward to engaging my clients who have experienced mergers and acquisitions in a productive way to leverage the strengths from merged companies instead of it becoming a point of contention or distraction.

The Growing Various Types of Diversity

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In my last blog where I discussed the shift of diversity to being a key strategic initiative for competing successfully in today’s fast-paced global economy (link here to that blog), I promised to next write about the various types of diversity. The diversity field itself is becoming increasingly diverse!

Twenty years ago in the United States (and even in some enterprises today) diversity meant gender and race. And often race only extended to white and black. The first expansion was to include sexual orientation (which first meant gay men and lesbians, and then itself was expanded to include bisexuals and transgender people) and people with disabilities.

But over the past decade and even now, the diversity field has been expanding and the new areas are even more applicable outside the United States since they address global phenomena. Some of these new areas (for some of these have I short new videos you can watch) include:

For the first time in history, there are 4 generations simultaneously in the workplace.

• Generational Diversity. For the first time we now have four generations of people in the workplace. The Millennials are now graduating from college and entering the workplace, and at the same time people in their 60s and 70s are staying on the job for various reasons, including financial security and wanting to stay mentally vibrant and challenged. The four generations each view work and relationships very differently, and good managers and team members will understand this and manage to this diversity. View my 2.5 minute video on Generational Diversity.
• Cultural Diversity. This refers to the growing cross-cultural and cross-national teams now working in our enterprises. With the explosion of internet technology, sales capabilities and supply chains have now become global. Even first level departments often have people located in multiple countries and more people are moving across boundaries and entering the workplace away from where they were born. View my 1 minute video on Cultural Diversity.
• Diversity of Thought – a brand new emerging area. Companies are now looking beyond diversity of appearance and to diversity in ways of thinking. When companies open themselves to diverse approaches to business problems and developing solutions, often a blended solution which includes different ideas results in a much stronger answer. When an enterprise is comprised of leaders who all think exactly alike, there is a huge potential for missing entire market segments and innovative products and offerings. Embracing diversity of thought includes listening to others and keeping an open mind to creativity and innovation.

For your own enterprise, consider how you can leverage these different areas of diversity to win in your marketplace.