100-Day Action Plan for Large-Scale Change or Mergers and Acquisitions

Why do you think most New Year resolutions don’t stick? In one of my keynotes, someone suggested that it is because you are drunk when you make them. Beyond that theory, would you agree that they often include no responsibility, practical expectations, or organized plan?

It has been said, “Teach and everyone will learn. Manage and no one will learn.” One hundred days is simply too short a timeframe to correct any mistakes. As such, it is critical to start with three to five realistic goals with high impact potentials rather than try to hit an immediate home run.

In many ways, a 100-day plan is really a five-year plan compressed into 100 days. In any large-scale change or merger and acquisition event, orchestrating critical and timely information flow to the right people at the right time is critical and it would serve well to execute from a centralized program management office (PMO).

A concise and quantifiable understanding of the impetus for change, whether a process, organization, or even change of control coupled with a strong change in the management team, is empowered by relationships of the change agents with the front line. A solid strategy will require a solidified plan for implementation. Change fails not because someone miscalculated the math. In many cases, it is due to the underestimation of the human element and cultural attributes. Line executives, who initiate change campaigns or put deals together, although astute in their business propositions, often miss the relationship consequences.

In considering a 100-day action plan for large-scale change or merger and acquisitions events, there are three important phases: pre-transaction due diligence (before the change ask yourself: Is this a good fit for the strategy of the business?), the first 100 days (everyone wants to see action and change implemented), and the longer term (after the dust has settled it is critical to review the long-term value). Keeping these phases in mind will provide for rapid, and successful, change management.