Mitchell Marks’ Organizational Change Topics:

1) Making Mergers and Acquisitions Work - Managing the Human, Cultural, and Organizational Issues
   If 75% of mergers and acquisitions fail, what makes the other 25% succeed? This presentation looks at the factors that distinguish successful and failed combination. It identifies sources of employee stress and culture clash, and provides specific methods for minimizing their unintended impact on corporate combinations. It also gives advice for building a "one team" mindset and finding and locking in true synergies that make one plus one equal three in a merger or acquisition. Based on personal experience in over 100 combinations, this talk gives colorful examples of what to do – and what not to do to make mergers and acquisitions work.

2) Charging Back Up the Hill - Workplace Recovery after Mergers, Acquisitions and Downsizings

   As the economy strengthens, executives’ spirits are buoyed by new business opportunities.  They see the goal and will confidently rally their troops to charge up the hill and take the prize.  Only the troops will be neither ready nor willing to charge up the hill.  Rather than focus on the opportunity ahead of them, they will be unable to let go of the pain behind them.  Their vision will be obscured by the emotional residue of anger, distrust, and depression built up over years of false promises and unmet expectations.  Nor will the troops have the confidence that they can take the hill—their self-esteem will be battered, and their faith in their organization broken.  Most significantly, the troops will not see how any personal gain will result from taking the hill.  Instead, they will fixate on memories of their fallen comrades:  the casualties of layoffs and downsizings, and the “walking wounded” whose careers were sidetracked by mergers and acquisitions.

   This presentation shows how to help organizations—and their people—recover from difficult transitions like mergers, acquisitions, downsizings, and restructurings.  It illustrates how these transitions are difficult events to manage and have negative—not merely neutral—effects on employee morale, team performance, and organizational effectiveness.  And, it presents a straight forward model that helps executives, managers and supervisors to “press the reset button" to get employees to let go of the pain of the past and to adopt new attitudes and behaviors that are consistent with the desired new organization and business opportunities.  This presentation is relevant to any organization that wants to move beyond the pain of transition and capture emerging business opportunities at hand.

3) Maintaining Productivity During Organizational Change
   This presentation for senior executives, middle managers and all other team leaders explains the stages employees go through during times of intense organizational change and shows how to manage each stage: letting go of the old, dealing with the neutral zone, and accepting the new. It provides proven tactics for maintaining productivity during transition and getting employees focused on the realities and opportunities in the post-transition organization.

About Mitchell Marks:

   Mitch Marks is an internationally recognized consultant, speaker, and researcher in the areas of organizational change, transition management, mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, employee motivation, and organizational enhancement.  He works with a broad range of organizations in the United States and abroad in areas including corporate culture, team building, organizational effectiveness, management development, executive coaching, senior team development, human resources management, and the strategic planning and implementation of organizational change.

   Mitch works extensively with firms planning and implementing strategic changes, mergers, restructurings, downsizings, alliances, and other transitions.  He is regarded as an innovator in developing innovative human resources and cultural approaches to achieving desired business results during transition.  Current or past clients include Pfizer, AOL, Intel, Motorola, AT&T, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Unisys, Hewlett Packard, Abbott Laboratories, BP, Molson Breweries, Bank of America, Citibank, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Blue Shield of California, Schering, Los Angeles County, U.S. Department of Energy, the March of Dimes, and others in the financial, manufacturing, health care, entertainment, high technology, government, publishing, consumer products, and communications industries.

   Mitch Marks is a frequent speaker to business groups and professional organizations.  Having been involved in more than 100 cases of organizational transitions over the past 20 years, his presentations are filled with real world "war stories" from actual cases and provide practical strategies and methods for implementing desired change.  His energetic and interactive style is well received by people at all organizational levels—executives, managers, and employees alike.

   He is the author of six books on topics of transition management and organizational effectiveness, including he recently published second edition of Joining Forces:Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances, Charging Back Up the Hill:  Workplace Recovery after Mergers, Acquisitions, and Downsizings, and Managing the Merger, along with several articles in management and scholarly journals.