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This column is part of Globe Careers' Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about leadership and management. Follow us at @Globe_Careers. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab.

Up to 80 per cent of mergers between companies don't work. The biggest obstacle is an unsuccessful attempt to combine two corporate cultures that are too different. You can't simply mash them together and hope for the best. It won't work.

This mistake is particularly common when an acquiring, dominant company is making a strategic buy in an area that would be more difficult to develop from scratch: a tuck-in acquisition. One such example is RBC's acquisition of Los Angeles-based "Bank to the Stars" City National. RBC has said publicly it intends to take "a light touch" merging the two brands. It's always difficult to combine two different corporations.

There are three steps to a successful blending of two distinct cultures:

ASSESSMENT

You don't really know the best way to combine two companies until you know exactly what kind of cultures you're working with. The first step is to do both quantitative and qualitative research on the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours in both companies. In our work doing these types of assessments, we've found the views of the employees always reveal at least some similarities between the two. Those similarities are going to be your common ground on which to build your new foundation, your new common culture. These become important touchpoints for employees to feel connected to each other.

Be machiavellian. When building a new culture common to both companies, focus on the similarities that are most important to the bottom line, to driving your business forward. For example, if you learn in your cultural assessment that both companies are entrepreneurial in nature, then make that the cornerstone of your combined culture moving forward.

OVERCOMMUNICATE

Once you've defined a new corporate culture common to all employees, communication is key. The leadership in both organizations needs to align, and needs express – as well as exemplify – the new, established culture. They must put this now-defined culture into action. For example, holding town hall meetings, holding training sessions to articulate the new values and expected behaviours, and selecting leaders who are already living these values and exhibiting these behaviours.

Leaders don't need to just communicate, but to overcommunicate, the new culture so it becomes intrinsically established within both businesses. Ensure culture is part of the performance assessment system, so behaviours that exhibit the preferred qualities are rewarded and expected. Hold company parties and retreats where the common values and behaviours are reinforced, so you make transitioning to a common culture more carrot than stick.

Then, have patience. If you build the common culture enablers, people who are not as enlightened will leave.

REVISIT THE DEMOGRAPHICS

That brings us to looking at the demography of the new, combined company. At the six-month point, or perhaps the one-year point, go back and see how far you've come and whether you are keeping people within your organization who are helping to build your new culture, or people who are detracting from it.

In Glenn Carroll and Richard Harrison's book Culture and Demography in Organizations, they offer several insights into whether a blended culture is going to work well. First, hiring selectivity: how well leadership is recruiting and hiring for fit within the new culture. Then, they look at socialization, how people get socialized in the workplace. This can be through retreats, manager one-on-ones or team meetings, or simply through office behaviour. Employees feel social pressure from their colleagues to fit in with the norms, values and behaviours of the organizational culture. Finally, there is the issue of alienation, which is when people leave the organization on their own, because they no longer feel aligned with its culture.

At the six-month or one-year point, if you examine closely the new blended organization, what are your findings about these three areas? How are your people hiring? How are employees being socialized? Why are those who are leaving doing so? Are the right people leaving? A follow up assessment several months after the initial cultural assessment should tell you if you're headed in the right direction or the wrong direction.

If two corporate cultures begin the blending process with a real cultural assessment, if they maintain it by key communication that starts from the top and carries across the entire organization, and if the new culture is integrated into the business systems and then reassessed six months or a year later to see what is working and what is not, the blending of different cultures can be successful, with patience.

Marty Parker is CEO, Waterstone Human Capital, Toronto

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