The August 2013 Strategy Session is about stopping post-merger value erosion. But I make it really, really, really interesting: Let’s save a deal: an eight-step program hat will help you ensure your deal of a lifetime stays that way. Featuring fantastic insight from Deloitte’s Randy Watt, Sandra Marin, the principal of Sandra Marin & Associates, and (drum roll, please) Pembina Pipeline CEO and president Robert Michaleski.

My favourite part:

You’re ready to hear some PR pap about communication right about now, right? Good, because that’s the next step. Companies know they have to communicate the vision, the plan. Leaders are all over that. Pretty excited about it, usually, when the deal’s the right deal (it all comes back to that, you see). They spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, if they’re smart, on communication experts to craft their press release and investor powerpoint presentations. “Where laws allow, that communication – of what the new organization is, what the new vision is – it all starts before day one,” Watt says. “You need to get moving on that as quickly as you can.” And, in fairness to all of you who’ve done post-merger integration badly, most of you know you need to communicate, and you’ve invested time and money in crafting the right communication. “But inevitably,” Marin says, “something is lost between the boardroom, where the C-suite figures this out, and the floor.” See, while it’s critical to have your CEO sell the message, it’s even more critical – from the internal operations point of view, at least – to have your front line managers sell it as well, both to your employees and to those of your clients and other stakeholders with whom they interact. For your employees, their direct manager’s sell of the deal is what matters the most. Ditto to your external relationships: A letter from the CEO isn’t going to carry nearly as much weight as the spin the sales guy in the field delivers. Equip them. Train them. Indoctrinate them.

• Full text at Alberta Venture.

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