When Merging Two Organizations

I was chair of a major hospital system, and we were in the midst of merging our hospital with another. We were planning a get-together for management folks and the top docs. It was taking place at the hospital of the organization that was joining us. We were significantly bigger, nationally ranked, and a major teaching hospital. They were a very good, well-run, highly profitable community hospital system.

The event was originally going to be a cocktail party with a few speeches and the opportunity to ask questions. At a cocktail party, some people are very comfortable—they mingle, mix, and meet new people—while others just are not. We needed people to feel good about their counterparts and start this merger off on the right foot. So, I encouraged our CEO to seat people at tables with assigned places. We came up with an exercise to have it make sense that we were seating people, but the real purpose was to “honor” everyone and to make sure our new partners felt welcome and an important part of the changes that were taking place.

By seating people, we mixed our board with their board, top docs with top docs, and management from both organizations. It worked well. Take the time to think about how to best help people to interact. It is worthwhile. The effort with the seating made people feel comfortable, and the exercise gave people a chance to see how “the other team” thought about important issues.