M&As: It's The Little Things
Over my career, I’ve navigated seven mergers and acquisitions from both sides of the table, including as a communications executive on a Fortune 100 deal team. Despite good intentions, even the strongest leaders can be tested. This series focuses on the behaviors and human dynamics that matter most in these moments.
The little things matter. The question is whether you notice the long-term impact.
Leaders tend to manage the big moments well. The initial announcement, the messaging, and the rationale behind the strategy. What gets missed, though, is almost always smaller than that but equally important.
My financial advisor has a saying I always keep top of mind. Pennies add up to nickels, nickels to dimes, dimes to dollars. Granted, pennies are becoming a thing of the past, but the point is clear. Small changes have a compounding effect.
In personal finance, we know this to be true. In a merger or acquisition, however, the same principle applies to the employee experience only the direction is different.
Small changes rarely feel significant on their own. And some leaders miss the signs until they show up in the culture or the team spirit. Left unacknowledged, they may add up to bigger challenges.
Every employee is thinking about the same question
When the announcement is made, building a communication plan that fully accounts for both the business priorities and how employees will interpret the news is, in many ways, unrealistic. Much of what people think and feel in the days and months that follow sits outside any plan.
Leaders focus on that plan and the strategy. And employees are typically focused on only one thing - themselves. There is a single question that dominates their thoughts: What does this mean for me?
In meetings they nod along, go back to their daily work, and think about that question every day and every night. Every small change that follows post-announcement gets filtered through that same lens.
Before the big changes arrive, the little changes start to happen:
A trusted manager leaves, and no one takes their place
A weekly meeting or team tradition disappears, or gets put on pause
A title change due to realignment feels like a step backwards
A longtime customer relationship gets handed to someone new
A project the team invested time and energy into gets shelved
The beloved company name needs to change on paperwork and elsewhere
An approval that used to take one conversation now takes three signatures
A tool used daily and loved by everyone gets replaced
Of course, acquisitions happen for a reason, whether to capture synergistic opportunities, access new markets, grow a regional footprint, or add capabilities that didn’t exist before. It’s rarely a flawless process.
But when the ongoing, smaller changes happen without context, it’s human nature that people create their own narratives which can be significantly disruptive both personally and professionally.
The behavioral science behind losing the little things
Behavioral science has a name for this: Loss aversion.
The concept behind loss aversion is that losses register more powerfully than equivalent gains. In other words, losing something familiar can hurt more than gaining something new, even if it feels good. A changed title, a cancelled tradition, a retired system, or a folded project are not trivial. They are how people experience change before the bigger changes even arrive.
How to get ahead of it?
Great leaders name it upfront and acknowledge all the little changes. It might sound like: “Some things are going to feel different in the coming months, that’s normal. I appreciate it might feel unsettling, but this is part of the process we all need to go through together as a team. I am paying attention and want you to feel comfortable raising the flag if we’re missing anything.”
No slide decks needed – say what needs to be said. It’s a conversation as well as an opening.
Employees won’t love every part of the transition. That’s expected. But they do need to move through it. A leader who acknowledges the small stuff is not dwelling on it. In many ways, they’re clearing a path so the team can move forward together.
Two things worth doing
In your next team conversation, call out something that has changed, even a few smaller things, before someone else brings it up. Acknowledge it, put it in context, and move forward. That sequence builds more trust than most leaders realize.
Ask your team what has felt different lately that has not been talked about yet. Then stop talking (read that again). What’s mentioned is exactly where your leadership attention needs to go.
It’s the little things – and they all matter. Employees remember the leaders who paved the way at the outset for what may be an emotional journey.
They will deeply appreciate it and thank you for it on the other side.
About The Author
Chris Chaia is the founder of Onwards Consulting, an executive coaching and strategic marketing consulting firm, serving leaders and organizations navigating growth and change. She is also the architect and publisher of The Business of Coaching 2025, a global research study on the practices, habits and behaviors of coaching entrepreneurs.
