Why Culture Is Often the First Victim of a Merger (and How to Stop It Dying on Your Watch)

Two businesses.
One deal.
A big opportunity.

On paper, it’s a smart move. The larger company gains capability, market share, or fresh energy. The smaller one gets scale, stability, or access to deeper pockets.

But behind the scenes?
Something quieter starts to unravel.
Culture, the very thing that made each business work, begins to fade.

The quiet casualty of mergers and acquisitions

In most integrations, the cultural focus comes after the big decisions:
After the contracts. After the structural changes. After the senior team shake-ups. By then, you’ve already disrupted the habits, rhythms and norms that made the place feel human.

Culture doesn’t show up in the balance sheet, but you’ll see its absence in your people.

• Confusion over how decisions get made

• Passive-aggressive meetings or corridor conversations

• Legacy teams disengaging or drifting

• Early attrition of your best culture carriers

• A general sense of “this doesn’t feel like us anymore”

And once that feeling sets in, it’s hard to pull back.

One common pattern? The smaller company often has a clearer, more intact culture at the point of merger. Not because they’re better, but because they haven’t stretched and scaled in the same way yet. Even when culture is part of the attraction, it rarely survives without intention. It’s easy to admire. Much harder to protect.

The senior team sets the tone

One of the biggest cultural risks isn’t “how the teams will mix”.
It’s how your leadership team shows up, with each other and with the rest of the business.

If your senior leaders are misaligned, fragmented or quietly resisting the change, that energy will ripple through everything. You might not see it on the board slides, but your people will feel it every day.

They need to be on the same page, not just structurally, but emotionally.
They need to be able to speak to what’s good about the new normal, and mean it.
Because if the rest of the business senses it’s “good for management, bad for us”, trust erodes fast.

Culture will not hold if your top team are privately unsure or politically hedging their bets. You can't fake alignment. Not for long.

Heading for a merger? Here’s what to do now

If you're still in the planning phase, this is your moment.
Don’t wait until the pain shows up. Design culture into the process from the start.

Here’s how:

1. Run cultural due diligence
Not just policies or values-on-a-wall. Dig into behaviours, team dynamics, decision styles, and unspoken rules.

2. Align your senior team first
If they’re not united, clear and ready to lead through the change, no one else will be either.

3. Define the ‘new normal’ together
Don’t assume one culture will absorb the other. Co-create a new set of norms that reflect the best of both and are clearly communicated to the whole business.

4. Involve your culture carriers
Who are the informal leaders people trust? Involve them early. They’re the bridge between strategy and lived experience.

5. Communicate like adults
Be clear, be human, and don’t sugar-coat. Trust your people with the truth and give them something to believe in.

Already mid-merger and seeing the cracks?

Maybe you’re past the planning stage. The deal’s done. But something’s off.
The vibe has changed. People aren’t saying much, but performance is dipping, energy is low, and your best folk are circling LinkedIn.

Here’s where I’d focus:

1. Get honest about the senior team dynamic
Before anyone else can align, your leadership team needs to. Get the real conversations on the table. Not just plans, but feelings, fears and beliefs.

2. Pause the performance mask
Create space for people to name what’s clashing, what’s been lost, and what needs to be rebuilt. Nothing changes unless someone names it.

3. Map the cultural drift
Look closely. What rhythms, rituals or values have disappeared? What needs restoring or reimagining?

4. Find your stabilisers
Spot the ones who still believe in the mission and bring others with them. Give them support and visibility. They will help rebuild momentum.

5. Reset clarity and decision rights
Power struggles often start with confusion. Be radically clear about who decides what, and why. Don’t let silence fill the gaps.

6. Re-anchor the ‘why’
Even now, it’s not too late to reconnect your people to something they can believe in. But it has to be real, not just a strapline.

What this work really takes

At Meraki People, we run 5 Voices alignment sessions with senior teams going through exactly this. We use the Meraki Method, a human, repeatable framework for reconnecting communication, trust, ideas, performance, and growth.

It works because we don’t start with structures. We start with people.
Because when people understand each other, they create trust.
When there’s trust, ideas flow.
When ideas flow, teams perform.
And when teams perform, growth becomes sustainable.

Whether you’re heading into change or already in the thick of it, culture doesn’t have to be the cost.
In fact, it can be the very thing that makes the next chapter work.

Want to talk it through?
Our 90-minute diagnostic session will help you see what’s really going on and what to do about it.
Book here.