What a Good Ops Integration Actually Looks Like
Most “operations integrations” are cosmetic.
Logos change. Emails get forwarded.
A Slack channel is spun up.
Someone updates the org chart.
And then reality hits:
- Systems don’t talk to each other
- Customers fall through the cracks
- Nobody’s sure who owns what
- The acquired team feels like guests in their own company
This isn’t just post-acquisition chaos—it’s bad ops.
And more often than not, it’s driven by ego.
I’ve Seen It Done Wrong—and Expensively
I once worked at a software company acquired as part of a complicated, PE-backed “merger.”
(As my Corporate Governance professor taught me, there’s no such thing as a merger. It’s just a takeover dressed in soft language.)
We had the better product—hands down.
Faster, more efficient, more value to the customer.
The acquiring company had the better looking product—slicker UI, flashier website copy, marketing names that said nothing about functionality but looked great in a demo.
What should have happened:
The two teams collaborate.
We combine speed with style.
The customer gets the best of both worlds.
The market gets disrupted.
Everyone wins.
What actually happened:
- Nobody wanted to admit their product had any shortcomings
- Layoffs hit our side, but not theirs
- Transparency vanished
- Trust collapsed
People held onto their turf instead of building something better.
The result? A failed integration.
Years later, the “winning” team might say, “We made money, so we did it right.”
But that’s short-sighted.
They measure what did happen, not what could have.
Most of us left. Some formed a competitor.
Imagine if that ambition had been kept in-house—as a red team, as an innovation lab, as a true second engine.
But ego wouldn’t allow it.
Good Integration Starts With Humility
Integration isn’t just technical. It’s emotional. It’s cultural.
If you want to get it right:
- Drop the superiority complex
- Admit what’s working on both sides
- Define shared goals before Day 1
- Decide what’s sacred, what’s up for debate, and what’s gone
Real integration isn’t “how do we make them more like us?”
It’s “how do we create something new that’s better than either of us alone?”
You Can’t Integrate What You Won’t Acknowledge
This is where most ops teams fail.
They pretend the systems are the hard part.
The truth is:
- The tech is solvable
- The processes are adjustable
- The politics are what kill you
If no one wants to admit their baby is ugly, you end up duct-taping two flawed orgs together and calling it synergy.
What a Good Integration Actually Feels Like
- Customers don’t feel the seams
- Teams understand ownership and decision rights
- Leadership communicates like grown-ups
- Innovation isn’t feared—it’s structured
The best integrations are invisible on the outside and coherent on the inside.
They feel clean. Clear. Stable.
Like someone thought it through.
Don’t Just Win the Deal. Build Something Worth Winning.
Integration isn’t the end of the story. It’s the inflection point.
If you think the goal is to absorb and erase, you might “win” the acquisition and lose the people.
Lose the edge.
Lose the opportunity.
If you really want to maximize the value of a corporate action, leave ego out of the room.
Because if the only thing your deal did was silence one side of the table—you didn’t integrate. You just deleted the upside.