When your merger machine backfires.

• Author: Allen, Dwight L., Jr.
• Position: Managing mergers and acquisitions

If you sense your recent merger isn't blossoming as planned, look for these signs of trouble and rush to make adjustments.

When two major U.S. service companies finally tied the knot a year ago, they expected some bumps during the transition but mostly smooth sailing. Instead, the new firm's top executives were inundated with questions and problems, and many of the business units were virtually paralyzed.

What went wrong? The two firms hadn't articulated the merged company's strategic vision quickly and definitively. They hadn't told the organization where the changes would be and, just as important, where they wouldn't be. At the top level, executives were operating without a strategic framework, so they focused on the minutiae, on putting out fires. At the bottom levels, employees delegated every detail upward because they had no direction, thus adding to the executives' load.

It's a classic outgrowth of one of the most common problems with mergers today: Newly merged companies find it difficult to define the key strategies that will build on the merger and create value for their customers. They decide - often correctly - that the merger makes sense, but they stop short of the next step.

As CFO and one of the key executives in the merger process, you must be intimately involved in setting this strategy and then monitoring the execution phases. You must insist on a tremendous amount of two-way communication between the teams overseeing the merger and the rank and file. While you have to find time to make speeches, you also must...