Bio
On Organizational Antibodies
Organizational antibodies are hidden everywhere post-merger, but often, they were formed as the deal was conceived or before the deal was closed. In the classic “build versus buy” scenario, R&D leadership may have felt spited by the executive leadership’s decision to acquire a capability rather than trying to build it in-house. It may have been perceived as a vote of no-confidence in the ability of the development team to bring a successful product to market faster and more effectively than some startup company.
The stage, therefore, is now set post-merger for stonewalling and an unspoken hope that their new teammates will fail.
Think about this statement for a moment. “Hoping to see the team fail!” Unfortunately, this is all too common and more the norm than the exception. This is clearly not the hope or expectation of the principals who conceived of the acquisition. They were hoping for collaboration and value creation. But, as we have said, “Hope is not a plan.”
In anticipation of such defensiveness, the acquiring company’s leadership may decide to isolate the new asset from attack by separating the new team in a standalone organization. Without the full support of marketing, sales, and operations, the subject matter experts in the new entity leave, and the intellectual property dissipates with the brain drain, as no knowledge transfer was allowed to incur.
Acquisitions create tensions not just at the organizational level but also at the human level. People feel like the rug was pulled out from under them. They liked the work they were doing, they had career paths in front of them in a young and growing organization, and they worked hard to establish their reputation with the leadership of that company.
Now that the leadership team is gone, the direction of the new company is unclear, and they are interviewing for their jobs. The tensions appear suddenly and are everywhere.
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