Just when you thought it impossible to get M&A and Zombies in the same podcast, Toby comes along to prove everyone wrong.

In this podcast he returns to his favourite topic of Deal Fever, presenting the view that some deals go REALLY wrong and that is always because the acquiring company ignores the three core principles of Purpose, Process and Planning. And when they do, they start to act in a Zombie like state where the deal is being done to satisfy huge ego's or just for the sake of it, and when that happens those companies are behaving just like Zombies.

In this episode, our guest is Norman Wolfe, founder and CEO of Quantum Leaders, a 15 year veteran of Hewlett Packard and author of The Living Organization, an application of the core principles of how the world works and how organisations can create extraordinary impact.

Norman's view is that most M&A fail because they are treated transactionally, and while that's a necessary baseline, successful acquisitions must be treated like a good marriage where relationship and context are key factors that bring about a transformation of the core paradigm of business.

A fascinating story and some valuable cause for thought especially as acquisitions resume post COVID-19.

As we look towards to possible end to COVID-19, there is general acceptance that we will see a rise in divestments, both out of necessity because of distressed assets, but also from strategic adjustments.

In this episode, Toby goes back in time to reflect on his first divestiture. This was a large separation impacting almost 1,000 people and a post divestment review idetified 14 key lessons for future divestments.

Toby talks about his experiences and leaves us with three key areas that he concludes must be tackled up front

Get the Governance right
Get the scope right
Make sure people care is properly addressed. 

In this week's story, we continue with the Sales Integration theme but explore a Food & Beverage acquisition where despite best practice from the leadership team, a few Brand Managers attempted to throw post deal progress off the rails. And then just as this 'sabotage' arose, another culture war erupted in Marketing.

This story outlines how strong leadership in the business recognised these as seperate challenges, and dealt with one of them swiftly but fairly, whilst turning the other issue into a significant advantage.

In the last episode, Toby outlined how some acquisitions have an inside out approach, and the customer is often overlooked, resulting in lost revenue opportunities.

In this episode, Robert draws on his extensive sales expertise to outline all of the moving parts that need to be considered post deal in order to ensure that the customer, and revenue growth become a central focus of the deal value creation.

And hopefully, you will recognise that it's not a simple process, but if tackled early, it's one that will deliver significant reward.

It can still be surprising that M&A deals continue to focus on an inside out approach such that attention is on financials, processes, systems, people etc. And whilst that's good practice, Toby argues that it's equally important to take an 'outside in' approach that takes the customers needs and expectations into consideration. 

In this episode, Toby outlines a large deal where on the surface, everything looked well organised, until he realised that the newly acquired customers had been completely neglected.

And once customer interests and engagement had been considered, the benefit on this particular deal was an improved operating model and increased revenue forecast.

We have the pleasure this week of being joined on our podcast by Global PMI's Stefan Hofmeyer. Stefan is a senior Partner with Global PMI Partners, and a highly experienced M&A practitioner with many successful projects under his belt. 

Stefan has chosen to talk about why executives and employees alike should be tuned into and practice their emotional intelligence skills. Particularly, Stefan advises that EI is one of the cornerstones of best practice in M&A that can directly impact the post deal outcomes.

More over, Stefan goes on to suggest that strong EI practice can be beneficial to employees and leaders alike in making sure everyone achieves their personal ambitions.

As Stefan so neatly summarises, it's all about communicating with Joy.

Hopefully, the experience relived in this podcast is one that very few people would have experienced. It's concerned with atrocious behaviour by a very senior leader who in the face of tragedy chose to put business before people.

The lesson in this week's episode is that we must always treat people with respect and dignity and in fact treat others how you hope to be treated yourself.

It's also a lesson that as leaders, we should aim to set the example for others to follow and emulate.

In this episode, Toby recalls a complex divestiture that he managed.
If the complexity had been left to flourish, it would have created disillusionment and misunderstanding that could send the divestiture completely off the rails.

The answer in this case was to bring the complexity down to a series of simple to understand rules, guidelines and expectations that everyone could understand and follow. Let's call them guiding principles.

Better still, Toby involved everyone in creation of those 'guiding principles' so they readily owned and complied thus bringing the divestiture to a successful close.
 
As Einstein is quoted as saying "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" That really is the Beauty of Simplicity.

The ability to quickly say “No” is sometimes the best answer in M&A. This is a story about a deal where quickly arriving at “No” was the best outcome.