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How to Conduct Cultural Assessments for More Successful Deal Outcomes
Hosted by Kison Patel
“How do the employees get work done? How do they interact with one another? How do they approach decision making? Once you are armed with this information and understand the unwritten rules of engagement within a company, you are better positioned to make strategic decisions and approach the merger in a way that supports preserving the value of the deal.”
On this Episode
Kison speaks with Dawn White, an M&A Integration Manager at Corning. Dawn is part of a team at Corning that’s responsible for launching and maintaining the organization's strategic growth, integration success and change management. On this episode, Dawn explains the importance of conducting cultural assessments during M&A transactions and explores how these assessments can lead to stronger deal outcomes, increased value creation and an overall happier and more productive workforce.
Dawn describes how to best conduct and approach cultural assessments as well as common missteps she’s seen in the process and how to overcome them.
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Show Notes
00:00 Intro
00:45 Dawn’s Background
01:35 Corning’s Integration Center
02:35 The Importance of Cultural Assessments During an M&A Deal
03:05 During the M&A process, when should you start considering culture?
03:55 Additional Cultural Areas to Assess Early On
06:05 Situations Where You Wouldn’t Do a Cultural Assessment
07:05 Dawn’s Approach and Checklist for Conducting a Cultural Assessment
09:15 Collecting Information for the Assessment
11:35 Surveys and Achieving Participation
13:15 Focus Groups vs. Surveys
16:30 On-site Cultural Observation
18:51 Cultural Themes
21:40 Paradoxes, Cultural Behaviors that Contradict Each Other
22:50 Additional Observations
26:42 Executing the Cultural Assessment
27:45 Common Missteps that Stunt Cultural Assessment
31:25 Spearheading the Importance of Cultural Assessment to a Deal’s Success
33:00 Financial Aspects vs. Cultural Aspects
34:40 Craziest Thing Dawn has Seen Doing Cultural Assessments
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