Welcome to Manager Tools. Today one of our Hall of Fame casts managing during mergers and acquisitions, part one.

Welcome to the Manager Tools podcast for Monday, August 21st, 2006. Hello, This is Michael Ozan and on behalf of Mark Vorsman and myself welcome.

First things first. Mark may want to thank everyone for their support and votes at the podcast awards for Manager Tools.

Manager Tools won the best in business category and we are truly appreciative of the

award but even more appreciative of the members that continue to support us in our

quest to live our dream. We're having a blast and we owe that to each of you.

Thank you very much.

So what are we going to talk about today?

Well, whether you're at a small or big company,

the competitiveness of the commercial world

and demands for growth make your firm either prey or predator. The company can't grow

organically by growing cells of its own products or innovating. Often leadership

looks to be acquired or acquire another firm. What does that mean for the manager? What is our role in helping

two organizations come together? How do you navigate the stressful water cooler talk-filled

flurry of e-mails world of a merger or an acquisition? In this series of cast, we lay it out for you. So let's get on with part one of our two-part series.

I think a lot of managers feel at the end of the whip, so to speak, when it comes to their company merging with another or when they get

bought or even when the company acquires somebody else. You know they feel like

they don't know what's going on most of the time they don't know what to do

about it and who to ask questions or you know any of that stuff.

Yeah that's that's exactly what my experience is too Mike. I actually go even

further I think an awful lot of managers get paralyzed.

Not that they can't do anything.

...