Our client is a C$800 million (A$900 million) multi-divisional non-government organisation providing social and religious services in Canada.

Two large divisions merged, with more change ahead

Two divisions with a combined annual turnover of C$230 million were brought under a single structure in order to reduce administrative burden, to streamline activities and to improve liaison with a provincial government.

The organisation asked Nous to help it consider what lessons it could learn from the experience to inform future changes and what change management was needed to embed the new division.

Our targeted review identified lessons learnt

We know mergers can be challenging, as people and systems come together and things do not always to go to plan. To undertake the review, we knew we needed to work alongside the people involved to understand their approach.

To gain these insights, our team:

1. held in-depth conversations with the architects of the merger and implementation to understand the approach they took and their actions
2. conducted interviews and focus groups with affected stakeholders to build a 360-degree perspective on the change
3. held a workshop with the leaders who designed and delivered the merger to identify the lessons learnt and to build understanding of the need to do things differently next time.

Our report and change management toolkit are setting the path to success

From these consultations we prepared a report that analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the merger process and identified how future change projects could be done differently. We identified lingering pain points where ongoing change management would enhance the merger outcomes.

We also developed a toolkit of change management frameworks and methodologies that was tailored specifically for the context of the organisation. The toolkit will help the organisation to tackle future change initiatives more effectively.

Thanks to our deep engagement with change leaders, we achieved strong buy-in for the revised approaches.