Buch: Bleiben oder Gehen? – Überlebensstrategien bei Fusionen, Übernahmen und Umstrukturierungen

A highly practical guide to mergers

Wirtschaftswoche

It happens to most employees (at least) once in their working life: the company they work for is restructured, or sold to an investor or a competitor. For the managers and staff of the companies concerned, mergers, acquisitions and major restructuring are an existential threat. The “synergies” being sought almost always mean job cuts, and managers from the acquired company are in a particularly weak position. Careers can end within hours - but new opportunities open up as well.

Career risk: takeover or restructuring.

A survival strategy instead of panic

So what are the best strategies for coming through this turbulence unscathed? Winfried Berner offers answers and advice that help those affected to prepare: how to improve their chances of staying with the company, for instance. How to prepare properly for the internal appointment process. Or how to assess their own market value and work with headhunters. And so, in the end, protect their own interests and not merely survive the situation intact, but come out of it stronger.

Keep a clear head and develop a strategy of your own.

Understanding what is happening

In this situation, the task is to keep a clear head and analyse the facts. What is the strategy behind the merger or acquisition? What does it mean for your own job? What are the rules of the game when posts are filled? How can you make a well-founded choice between the “internal” and the “external” option? And how do you make sure, in good time, that you have workable alternatives if the worst comes to the worst?

Preparation and encouragement

Experience is invaluable throughout all of this - but it does not necessarily have to be your own. The aim of this book is to pass on my many years of merger experience to you, clearly structured and in language that is easy to read. Just as important as experience, though, is being prepared and not being caught off guard. That is where this book sets out to help. You should know what is coming and have a plan for shaping how you deal with it. Above all, though, the book is meant to give you courage: mergers and restructuring may be complex, and things may not always be entirely fair, but your own professional “survival” is a task you can very well master, when a clear head, good preparation and the determination to act come together.

Setting rigorous priorities

The new edition of “Bleiben oder Gehen?” answers the questions that arise for those affected. You will read, for example, how to improve your chances of staying with the company, and also how to assess and manage your own market value realistically. You will find solid advice on the topics that matter if the worst comes to the worst: how to prepare thoroughly for the internal appointment process, how working with headhunters actually functions, and what counts when negotiating a settlement agreement.

An updated new edition

For the new edition, the book has been thoroughly revised and brought up to date. Among the new material are two sections explaining how to use social networks actively to signal to executive search consultants that you are “open to approaches”, and how to get ready for a management audit or management appraisal - an assessment of your performance and your potential by external search consultants. Whatever one may think of its merits, the method is being used more and more often in mergers and acquisitions.

Extracts from reviews.

Personalmagazin:

“In his book, Winfried Berner sets out how to prepare for the turbulence ahead. Checklists and a bibliography support the individual steps.”

Diebold Management Report:

”… shows how to recognise the strategies behind the merger or restructuring and how to analyse your own situation correctly.”

Allegra:

“How to assess your position correctly and what you can do when your company merges or is restructured is all in ‘Bleiben oder Gehen’.”

CHEManager:

“The author introduces the rules of the game for filling posts and gives numerous tips on actively managing your own market value.”

Personalführung:

”… offers suggestions on how employees can improve their chances of staying with the company. It also helps them assess their own market value realistically, should they need to look for a new post. Tips on working with headhunters and on negotiating a settlement agreement are also part of this book.”

Personal:

”… gives a comprehensive introduction to the rules of the game for filling posts … helps readers pursue internal and external options to best effect and offers valuable guidance for decisions.”

Elektronik:

”… shows systematically and in practical terms how to assess your ‘chances of survival’ in fundamental organisational change and how to decide whether it is time to go - and if so, how to go about it.”

Management & Karriere:

”… deals clearly and critically with the rules of the game behind personnel reshuffles … gives numerous useful pointers and states truths such as ‘Do not get pulled along by the prevailing mood’, ‘Identify the merger strategy’ and “How to manage your market value’:”

Euro am Sonntag:

“While top management usually has a soft landing, the lower levels are hit far harder. This is where the selection process bites without mercy … a guide to how affected employees can face the new situation as skilfully as possible.”

Badische Zeitung:

”… many useful pointers on working with recruitment consultants …”

Erfolgsfaktoren (PDF)

“As a solution-focused consultant who specialises in change management, the author’s central concern is to move those caught up in a merger out of the passive role and to turn them into active shapers of their own career planning.”

Example

The famous quotation from Saint-Exupéry says a great deal about what developing a compelling vision really involves:

Sample extract.

Detailed profile of Florian Grolman to download as a PDF

Where can you get the book?.

The quickest way is to order it here from Amazon. But of course you can get it just as easily from a bookshop or another online retailer.