Five Frogs are sitting on a log.  Four decide to hop off.  How many frogs are left?*

It doesn’t take much for good intentions to end up in disaster.  It’s been my recent fate to be involved in two failed mergers, one a postmortem, the next a trainwreck-in-progress.  Integrating distribution, logistics, information, management and financial systems; oh, and the people is a tough tough thing.  The deal makers fall in love with the potential synergies and then all too often with out a plan or a process hope that magic will happen once the deal is done.

"Five Frogs on a Log: A CEO’s Field Guide to Accelerating the Transition in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Gut Wrenching Change” by Mark Feldman and Michael Spratt is a great guide, and not just for mergers and CEO’s but for any organizational change event and those who are caught up in the maelstrom of clashing cultures.  A little light on methodology, this book will let you know what to expect from the merger/acquisition, encourage focusing on execution, the importance of communicating even when in the fog, it’s a virtual project plan for you and your leadership team. 

Read it!  Hopefully before, not after the chaos starts.

*Five. Because there’s a difference between deciding and doing. "Execution", the authors tell us, "is always more difficult than it seems."