Culture and Acquisitions gone bad

I had never heard about Queen Boadicea of the Iceni tribe and just recently learned that she fought the Romans on 60AD with a vengeance. The Romans had conquered Britain a while back and the cultural differences were dramatic between the two nations. The story goes something like this. Queen Boadicea’s husband died and left his Kingdom to his two daughters, making Boadicea the regent until the daughters were old enough to reign on their own. In order to prevent any problems with the Roman authorities, he left half of his wealth to the Emperor. The Romans did not respect the will of the King and took everything from Queen Boadicea and his daughters including their dignity by committing brutal acts against them.

I have not had enough time to study all the historical facts around this event but I’m wondering if the outcome would have been different if the Romans had respected the King’s will and their culture. It’s hard to tell what happened over 2000 years ago and I’m wondering if part of the issue was the lack of respect towards these Celtic Women. The Roman woman did not have rights, rather they were treated as a piece of property. In Celtic culture, the women were treated as equals to men. They even shared responsibility in war:

“We British are used to women commanders in war’…I’m fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body and my outraged daughters” Queen Boadicea

The story ends with Queen Boadicea organizing a revolt that destroyed two cities and over 80,000 Romans.  The Romans won in the end and the rumor is that she killed herself in order to prevent her demise in captivity.

This is no different than an acquisition gone bad. When companies with totally different cultures come together and there is no flexibility in the operating styles there can be situations and actions that cause one party to have irreconcilable differences.

An example of cultural tension in our times involves Ebay and Skype. When Meg Whitman, the CEO of Ebay, visited Skype’s engineering team from California to Estonia, Zennström and Friis (founders of Skype) did not show to the meeting. Ebay operated so differently than Skype that the integration between Ebay and Skype went bad. Recently, the founders of Skype took revenge on Ebay for misuse of their software which created a hurdle on moving the sale of Skype to the new buyers. A deal was brokered so that the founders would still have a stake in the new ownership for dropping the legal charges.

In both cases whether we’re talking about the Romans or Ebay, these ventures end up costing a lot when the cultures are not integrated well.

Your Insights and Thoughts

• Do you know who’s doing a good job at assessing cultures before an acquisition is made?
• What role does culture play in acquisitions gone bad?

Tagged as: Cultural Diversity, Success