Establish expectations
If you want your people to be successful in a merger or any other process, you have to set clear expectations for them.
“Set the expectation of what you want, and it’s beyond just deal value,” he says. “It may be people and assets and platform and technology and customer relationships. Make sure you’re addressing that as early in your due diligence process as possible.”
You can set specific expectations, such as what you’re analyzing and what you’d like the outcome to look like.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t get there,” Schwartz says.
Once the goals are articulated, you’ll have a gauge for measuring how well employees do that. So those goals will become the metrics for judging individual performance and contribution as well as the success of the change.
“Be very clear on what’s considered meeting expectations, exceeding expectations or not meeting expectations,” he says. “It’s really important that you define what those measures are upfront before you do the transaction, because you want to be able to look back and know you were successful.”
When all the changes are swirling around you, you’ll be grateful that you took the time to set those metrics ahead of time.
“With everything moving around — when you’re doing a deal like this and you’re new to taking over an entity and you still have a lot to learn — you need a good radar screen,” Schwartz says. “That’s why, if we set clear expectations upfront of how people are going to be measured, that can tell us whether somebody is delivering on what we’re looking for them to do.”