Are there heroes in a post-M&A deal journey? There can be.

Every organization has a favorite senior leader or two. They are the leaders who almost everyone likes. They are smart, compassionate bosses who bring value to the company individually while also inspiring teams to do their best. People enjoy working for them. Comments like “they are my favorite boss” are not uncommon. Great galvanizers of teams roll up their sleeves to contribute to the work and consistently bring people together to take pride in what’s been achieved. When a merger or acquisition occurs, they are the leaders people are drawn to for advice. They are stable and level-headed and have empathy for the emotions people are experiencing.

Every acquisition has to have at least one hero, and this is usually found (or at least wished for) in the Great Unifier.

When a merger or acquisition occurs, Great Unifiers command a lot of respect. People want to hear what they think. (“Is this merger a good thing? What does it mean for the company?”) Since Great Unifiers are about bringing people together to do their best work, they are the leaders most actively showing enthusiasm for the deal, trying to get everyone on board, and highlighting the enormous potential for the new company and what it all means for the future. 

People really want to get on board with Great Unifiers and trust in what they’re saying. They have been such great leaders in the past, people want to keep trusting and following them. But unfortunately, it’s not that simple. And here’s where this character gets caught in the drama.

With mergers and acquisitions, the power balance shifts. While Great Unifiers were respected leaders in the original company, when companies come together it’s a whole new ballgame. A ballgame where the rules constantly change as a company shifts from the old way of doing things to a new, yet-to-be-defined way.

As cultures compete, the work atmosphere can go from "peaceful jungle" to "survival of the fittest".

And to survive you need to be ready to play a game where the rules are defined as you go along. If Great Unifiers, who have been valued and respected for their compassionate leadership, don’t pick up on these shifts, it can be their undoing.

People so desperately want to share in the enthusiasm and optimism of Great Unifiers, but they also don’t want to be duped. Given the poor success rate of M&A deals, the imprint on most people’s collective brains is negative. They don’t trust anyone or anything because they’ve heard the horror stories. They would like to continue following Great Unifiers, but now they are watching a cast of other characters circling around. Post deal, as people assess what’s true and what isn’t, they are trying to determine if Great Unifiers’ leadership is still effective or if they’ve unwittingly become na?ve chumps. People are trying to decide which horse to back and they aren’t sure whether Great Unifiers will survive this game.

“Beware of na?ve optimism,” revealed an interviewee who experienced a multibillion-dollar media acquisition. “From my experience, mergers and acquisitions are a ruthless business. My best advice? You have to be a healthy pessimist instead of a constant optimist—and I say this as someone who’s always been an optimist. You need to be savvy. You can’t be a pawn.”

The crux of the issue is that Great Unifiers are not focused on being politically savvy. They haven’t had to be. They’ve been good at their job, and their leadership brand has been about believing and trusting in people. They understood the rules of the game because they actively contributed to creating that positive culture. But here’s the problem: in the post-deal landscape, the rules automatically change as different cultures come together. People are trying to determine which culture will prevail—and compassionate leadership usually doesn’t end up on top. At least not at the beginning.

Whether you are the Great Unifier or are working for one, how can you maintain your integrity, and your compassionate leadership, without being consumed by the politics? How do you quickly get smart on the politics being played so you understand the new rules and who or what is driving them? From my experience, there are two things you need to do: 

1. Listen very carefully to company communications. 
2. Actively “read between the lines” on responses.

Some might suggest a third, which is to dig around amongst peers for more intelligence, but this is risky because it can be hard to discern fact from gossip and conjecture in the early days. Best to draw your own conclusions from what you hear and see.

Listening to what leadership communicates and how they communicate provides an enormous amount of invaluable insight. What a leader says can have several layers of meaning, and how it is said can be a giveaway to various subtexts.

In a post-M&A deal environment, you are looking for subtext.

For instance, if executives give you a routine, generic answer without showing any passion, then you can typically conclude they are just towing the corporate line. The flipside is true as well. If they answer enthusiastically off-the-cuff, then you can conclude they are really behind the effort. These observations are equally invaluable.

Beyond just listening, actively reading between the lines means that not only do you understand what is being said, you also pick up on what is being articulated outside of words. Pay attention to people’s body posture, voice tone, gestures, and how they subtly react to questions asked by you or others. In an M&A environment where you might witness a lot of disingenuous behavior, taking the time to read between the lines can be a valuable skill. You will be amazed at how much more you can learn. 

“We could tell that enthusiasm for our product launch had diminished just by the way our leadership talked about it,” revealed one of my interviewees who’d experienced several multibillion-dollar acquisitions and considered himself a Great Unifier. “While they said it was still a key part of the portfolio moving forward, we saw in how they essentially avoided discussing it until asked that it had dropped in importance. It was a key lesson for me as the leader of my team to not take anything at face value anymore.”

It’s not that you can’t trust anything you hear; you just have to be smart about the questions you ask. Smart listening requires smart questions.

Take the time to formulate strong questions to provide the most valuable insights and follow these guidelines to be an active listener skilled at reading between the lines.

1. Take in what has been said, but also pay attention to what has not been said. For example, in a discussion about a product launch, you might note that something was not covered. To dig, you can ask something like, “I noticed that in our discussion, you didn’t mention XYZ. Should I interpret that to mean this is no longer important?”
2. Recognize when people are deliberately avoiding an issue that they should typically be addressing. If an executive is routinely avoiding discussing a certain project or topic that she would typically discuss, that’s a sign that something is up and it’s worth getting smarter on.
3. Pay close attention not just to what people say but the way in which they say it. If they answer enthusiastically or in a monotone fashion, both responses provide significant insight.

The value of taking the time to read between the lines helps you understand what leadership really wants. The key is you are always looking for subtext—the message behind the message.

How to handle land-grabbers if you are the Great Unifier

In my three acquisition experiences, I have consistently played the role of Great Unifier. It is a great and critical role to play, but you have to stay smart and appreciate the power shifts happening. If you don’t, you can get duped, and your team won’t follow you. They have no choice. They will see other leaders or teams who seize on the post-deal chaos to gain more responsibilities, who “land-grab” even if it is not their area of expertise. They may grab for responsibilities that are legitimately yours. You should expect this and plan for it. Follow the above advice—listen carefully, read between the lines, and proactively demonstrate your expertise at every opportunity. 

A deal’s success relies on people staying engaged and productive, and no one is better at getting that from teams than the Great Unifier. But they have to be tapped in and stay smart on what is really going on in the company. This includes effectively listening to their team. By nature of being on the front lines, team members can often see some of the shifts happening better than the Great Unifier can. To truly be effective, the Great Unifier must create meaningful, ad hoc opportunities with teams and individuals to get a sense of what they are thinking, seeing, and experiencing. The more the Great Unifier knows—not just from senior leadership but from how their team(s) are embracing the post-deal changes—the better leader a Great Unifier can be to make change truly happen. 

Jennifer J Fondrevay is the Founder of Day1 ReadyTM, a consultancy that advises forward-thinking business leaders, owners and C-Suite executives on how to prepare for the human capital challenges of M&A. As a Fortune 500 “survivor” of three multibillion-dollar acquisitions, Jennifer has been on all sides of the deal equation. She shares her expertise as a contributor to: Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Thrive Global, American Marketing Association, Middle Market Growth; and as a frequent podcast guest and keynote speaker.