Chapter 1 The deal life cycle and typical goals The deal life cycle is the essential starting point because, in framing the work in business terms, this is the M&A situation culture work is designed to address. But the deal life cycle is difficult to understand in its entirety, and barely understood by those not deeply ingrained in M&A. We use the deal life cycle table To address this issue the group developed the deal life to orientate our leaders. While in cycle to help leaders understand the transaction in a corporate development, it’s ‘M&A 101 comprehensive and visual way. (The deal life cycle table is stuff,’ for others it’s ‘rocket science.’ available as an attachment.) For the purposes of this paper, We have to manage our own leaders at the deal life cycle is defined as consisting of five phases times and the fact that many outside along with an explanation of what happens at each phase, commentators have their ‘ear.’ I’m the typical goals for each phase and the corporate decisions and legal milestones that signify the progression of the amazed at the ‘commentators’ who transaction and the movement from one phase to the next. speak about how culture work can However, note that this is an “aggregated” model, and each impact our deal success, and our firm has its own variation suitable for its own company- deal goals. We know that. What they specific purposes, based on how they describe the deal life struggle to define is what success cycle and how they position the deal goals. means in the context of any of the It is also important to point out that it is not a clean, linear phases within the overall transaction. process, as the deal life cycle table may imply. The phases On top of that many just don’t seem and goals are not separate and distinct and can and do to understand how a deal unfolds and overlap in many areas. The key is that each deal phase is built how decisions must be made within on the previous one, and deal goals are adapted, refined or added as more information becomes available. each phase to ensure the deal keeps moving forward. They often miss This “build” is critical to understand for transactions and this fact, and are blind to how these further that the “quality” of the build is based on the decisions decisions, however imperfect, impact made, or not made, or deferred, from the previous phase, what happens in the next phase. And which itself depends on the deal situation, the information gathered at any one phase and the time constraints and each phase does not start off with a typical limitations in each deal. ‘blank sheet of paper’ as some seem The business case is then developed around the life cycle to think. At times, I’m not even sure and goals. these people know what the corporate development function even does.” Corporate development leader in responding to the prolific amount of outside advice their leaders get about the place of culture in M&A. Building the business case for culture in M&A 3