Statistics show that 75 percent of consolidations and mergers fail. “These failures can most likely be attributed to the fact that employees and cultures are not effectively managed through these transitions,” observes Lori Dernavich, a business advisor who provides C-level executives, HR directors and boards with workplace performance solutions. “Managers need to be taught the necessary skills to effectively guide their employees through a tumultuous time,” she says.

Dernavich offers these recommendations for companies that want to provide their managers with the skills for success, especially during a consolidation:

1. Make effective use of management training programs. Expensive business school management programs can be helpful, but companies will lose most of their investment unless they determine how managers will implement what they have learned. Companies should organize workshops in which managers and employees from across the organization can share, discuss and implement what was learned.
2. Encourage constructive feedback to employees on an ongoing basis. Managers should not wait for the annual performance review to provide feedback. Specific examples of what employees have done and in what areas they need to improve need to be discussed on a regular basis. Managers should then work with employees to develop specific action plans for improvement. Put all employees through training on how to give constructive feedback and have difficult conversations.
3. Encourage managers to find a mentor. Internal mentors can act as conduits for the transfer of company values, ethics, knowledge, vision and more. Having an internal mentoring program is best, but encourage managers to find external mentors as well.
4. Remind managers to manage others the way they would like to be managed. Some managers can get caught up in their status and forget what it was like to work closer to the front lines. Because this attitude can breed resentment, managers should be reminded regularly to look at their management style from a different perspective.
5. Teach managers to delegate effectively. Micromanaging is a morale killer. Employees are most engaged when they feel that their work matters to the organization and that they are respected. Let them take ownership of their projects.
6. Require familiarity with every job in the organization. Have employees from different departments present at team meetings to explain their roles. Require managers to attend sales calls with salespeople and relieve the company receptionist during a specified time slot; even let them sit in on an executive team meeting to see what goes on at higher levels of the organization. It is important that managers understand every aspect of the company.
7. Create manager roundtables. It is vital to provide a place where managers can speak openly about problems and learn from one another, as well as admit mistakes without damaging their reputations.

Source: Lori Dernavich, LLC; http://www.loridernavich.com.