LEADERSHIP SELECTION IN AN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY
The business needed to define its leadership strategy and select leaders to the newly merged company
THE CHALLENGE
Our client was a leading, international communications technology business. A merger with a competitor offered the businesses the promise of expanding their footprint, upgrading their technology and combining the best of their legacy, brand and reliability with the other’s dynamism, agility and customer-focus.
Mindful of the high failure rate of M&A’s and the challenge of bringing together two contrasting cultures, the CEO and VP of HR engaged O.R.Talent to define the new leadership culture and identify the best-fit leaders for the merged organization.
OUR APPROACH
Given the pace of the integration, we had to move fast.
We worked with the CEO and leadership team to define the culture they wanted to create and the leadership competencies and qualities that would support it.
We designed an assessment process to profile the current leaders from both organizations to identify their key strengths, development areas and fit to the new culture and strategy.
We assessed 125 people in-person in 4 countries in 3 weeks.
Participants received in-depth feedback on the results and created a development plan. Reports and aggregate data were shared with the HR team.
THE IMPACT
The results were used to deploy the right leaders in the right roles and to inform the design of a development program to bring the new organizational culture to life.
Consistent with the new culture, participants perceived the assessment and selection process as fair, objective and transparent – even if they were unsuccessful
18 months after the merger, the business was acquired by a leading industry player at a 50% premium in its stock price.