MERGING TWO COMPANIES presents many challenges. For employees, the greatest test is learning to play on the same team with colleagues who in the past were competitors.

Meeting planners in the pharmaceutical field are all too familiar with this scenario as they theme their conferences around achieving a common vision among attendees who had previously been competitors. For many pharma meeting planners, the biggest challenge is finding the right speaker to communicate the message that change can be good and working as a team can produce amazing results.

Making Music Together

One pharma company took this literally when they hired Boris Brott, a well-known music conductor based in Canada. All the attendees in Brott's audiences learn to play music with an orchestra so that everyone can be a part of the incredible sound that results. Just as no single musician can create what the entire orchestra can, what can be accomplished when two merged companies share a vision can be inspiring.

Another newly merged pharma company was taken by surprise when “war” was declared by the Afterburners at the opening business session for a national sales meeting. The After-burners, naval fighter pilots and instructors who are serving in the reserves or the National Guard and who also work with corporate groups, announced that a competitor had just declared war against them, and they would need to strategize ways to fight this “enemy” together and beat the competition. The audience was divided into small groups and given hard hats, maps, supplies, and instructions. Soon small groups of former competitors were working together on a common goal and, more important, they were having fun doing it.

Let ‘em Laugh

But what about the specific topic of “change”? This key component must be addressed at all meetings post-merger, right? Wrong! I've found that after the merger, by the time a meeting rolls around, attendees are sick of the topic. They've undergone massive change in their work environments, and they don't want to be brought off-site to talk about it some more.

So, the best way to deal with this is to laugh at change and bring in a speaker who can facilitate a discussion on change without the attendees knowing that this is what they are really talking about. Some pharma companies are accomplishing this task by hiring meeting hosts like Dale Irvin, a motivational speaker who gets audiences to laugh along with him. When company executives get up to speak about marketing, sales, and new product development, Irvin is there to do a recap — and make it funny. Suddenly, those housekeeping messages about the merger that may have created tension now become something that attendees look forward to hearing. And, studies show that when people laugh, they also tend to retain more.

The goal of all pharma meetings for newly or soon-to-be merged companies should be to create a sense of teamwork. Change is the byproduct but teamwork is the key to creating a successful company. After all, without the team, the merger is irrelevant.

Perhaps, space shuttle astronaut and motivational speaker Mike Mullane summed this up best in an interview after the Columbia disaster. When asked about the future of the space program and what makes it great, Mullane said, “You could give infinite money to the program, and that's not going to buy you total safety. It's the attitude of the team. It's the people.”

Ruth Levine is founder of Speak Inc., an international speakers bureau based in San Diego with offices in Chicago and Kansas City. She works with pharma and biotech companies, as well as medical associations. She can be reached at (858) 457-9880 or rlevine@speakinc.com. To view speaker demo videos online, visit www.speakinc.com.