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We review our work as collaborators over nearly 40 years as researchers and OD practitioners on the human, cultural, and organizational aspects of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This chapter addresses (1) how our thinking, research methods, and practices developed over time, (2) accounts of deriving theory from practice and contrariwise of applying theory to practical matters, (3) how our respective shifts from academe toward scholarly-practice influenced our thinking and how we write, and (4) varieties of scholarly collaboration – ranging from intensive interchange to sequential pitch and catch. Early work covers a study of a “white-knight” acquisition and then advising on post-merger integration in a hostile takeover, revealing the stages of a deal, dynamics of buyers and sellers, and human factors that produce the “merger syndrome.”

Throughout we talk about confronting challenges of the scholar-practitioner divide as it pertains to role definition and boundary management as well to our theorizing, writing, and publication agenda. The chapter concludes with reflections on doing applied research in collaboration with a colleague (and friend).

Organizations today operate in highly dynamic environments and are becoming more complex. Helping their organizations master this complexity is a major leadership challenge. To better understand how managers’ behaviors aggravate or reduce complexity, we reviewed 1,400 responses to a proprietary organizational complexity survey. Analysis identified specific managers’ behaviors that contribute to perceived complexity. We draw from these findings, literature on complex adaptive systems, and our consulting experiences to identify specific strategies managers can use to make it simpler for people to get things done, and even to “master” complexity by turning it into a source of strategic advantage.

Leaders of today's organizations need a zest tor uncertainty, a passion for ferment, and a focus on short‐term results.

GE's Work‐Out process enables a kind of communication that's often missing in large, complex, global organizations.

Speed, flexibility, integration and innovation are becoming the new drivers of organizational success. Institutionalizing these new success factors requires not just new technology, but also a loosening of boundaries—between the levels of the hierarchy, between the functional areas and departments, between suppliers and customers, and, increasingly, across geographic borders. Rigid lines of demarcation—be they vertical, horizontal, external, or global—get in the way of being fast, flexible, and creative. More permeable boundaries, on the other hand, permit a healthy and brisk flow of ideas, energy, and information.

Like a whirling tornado, the first half of the 1990s has overturned most of our traditional notions about what it takes for organizations to be successful. We have seen premier companies like IBM, General Motors, Kodak, Sears, Aetna, Prudential, and Westinghouse stumble or fall despite dominant market size, brand recognition, and well‐proven management systems. We also have seen mega‐mergers reshape whole industries such as banking, pharmaceuticals, and entertainment; and mega‐breakups reshape our notion of conglomerates. And overlayed on all of these industry shifts has been an unrelenting parade of organizational change programs—total quality, reengineering, business process redesign, reinvention, delayering, and more—as individual companies have resorted to massive doses of disruption to keep up.

Both the simple paramecium slogging through the swamp and the business executive struggling through the economic doldrums of 2002 are on their own. There's no guarantee that change or innovation or both will advance an existence or company, making them fit to survive and thrive. Yet change and innovation seem to be the only options on the table, so it's a good idea to get a handle on both.