Building on our previous post ‘How Founder Compatibility Is Essential In Startups and Any Venture‘, this also obviously applies to other situations such as partnerships, mergers and acquisitions.
I have too often observed partnerships between companies, or plans for merger or acquisition falter because after the operation has been consumed, partners realize that they actually have a low cultural or values compatibility. The root cause is the lack of time taken to get to know each other, and specifically, identify and address misalignment.
When things are not well anticipated, one of the parties will generally take the lead and dominate to the frustration of the other. And it most cases it leads to botched projects with people leaving the resulting organisation.
In my business practice I now try to spend a lot of time getting to know presumptive business partners well, before committing into a more serious relationship where reputations or even survival can be affected. It is not always possible to spend as much time and effort as we would like because of the pace of business. Still there is nothing worse than entering in a partnership and then be anxious that the partner will not play fair, or aligned with our values.
Take enough time to know your counterpart intimately. Partnerships, mergers and other (friendly) acquisitions only will work with benevolence, trust, and minimal cultural and values alignment.
