The Coopetition Group Response: “Selection Assessment in Merger & Acquisition Context”
Stefanie Spera
jmspartners, inc.
After the 2002 SIOP convention, a few members started an e-mail group to better connect independent practitioners and small business owners within SIOP. This networking group was dubbed “Coopetition,” reflecting our status as competitors who cooperate. The discussion list approach is easy, and the access to information is quick, like popping into a colleague’s office down the hall. The group has no meetings, no Web site, no leaders. To join, a current Coopetition member simply recommends you to the group.*
*Keith Rettig (krettig@multirater.com), one of the founding members, volunteers his time and resources to provide the technological magic required to add new members and to keep the group functioning.
For the past 7 years, members have been posing questions and answering them on a variety of I-O practice-related topics: testing, coaching, research, referrals, and opportunities. I recently prepared the following summary for the group, following a question I had posed. It is an example of the group’s collective wisdom and colleagueship within 21st century-style networking.
Ten colleagues responded to my request for input about conducting selection assessment in an acquisition context, and I pursued further input with them via phone and/or e-mail. They asked me to play back to everyone what I’d learned. In brief:
- Consider any formal leadership assessment in a presale environment as sensitive and potentially intimidating.
- Take a broad view of the client’s request first. Understand where they are in the acquisition process, and learn their intentions for the acquired business.
- Gauge receptivity to assessment: Is there previous experience that predisposes individuals positively or negatively? “Assessment sets a tone”; it can be perceived as invasive and intrusive, especially if there is no history of assessment in the target company.
- Understand up front how the assessment outcome may impact the acquisition itself.
- Consider informal talent assessment via observation and interviewing instead of formal assessment in the presale phase. It’s less intimidating. Follow with formal assessment of talent in the postsale/integration period.
- Focus on the integration period, and use assessment to help determine who goes where in the new organization. Help the acquiring company use data—from assessment and other sources, for example, performance ratings—in a qualitative way to make placement decisions for the new structure.
- Pair leadership team assessment with a culture audit, and use data from both to determine how to facilitate integration (beyond talent and placement decisions to communication and other issues).Use formal assessment as part of a disciplined process to make decisions about who goes where in the new organization. This helps convey a sense of fairness to employees in the target company.
- Always use assessment as a development tool; provide a benefit to employees’ individual development regardless of selection decisions.
Many thanks to colleagues Joseph Abraham, Lucinda Doran, Hodges Golson, Clyde Mayo, JoAnn McMillan, Gail Nottenburg, Lance Seberhagen, Steve Stanard, Dennis Whittaker, and Jon Ziarnik.
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