A LOT has been written about merging cultures when merging companies. Most of what has been written has fallen on deaf ears. Merging cultures is difficult. Just think about your most recent holiday spent with a house full of relatives!
Historians attribute the success of the Roman Empire in part to the successful merging of conquered cultures into Roman culture. Those aspects of conquered cultures that the Romans did not find objectionable, they maintained for centuries. Those they objected to, they largely obliterated.
In a corporate merger, of course, no party is officially “conquered.” Without a conqueror, who decides which culture prevails? People cling tightly to their own culture. For a merger to succeed, however, one culture must develop or prevail over others. Unilever, the food and consumer-products giant, still has two of almost everything after merging 74 years ago and is now feeling the pain of its sprawling structure (“Despite Revamp, Unwieldy Unilever Falls Behind Rivals,” by Deborah Ball, The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 3, 2005, p. A1).
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