Chairman’s Message – June 2020
By Mark Herndon, Chairman of the M&A Leadership Council
“When will the M&A Leadership Council be hosting in-person, onsite training programs again?”
This question has been one of the most frequently asked over the last several weeks, and given the recent COVID spikes and hotspots, frankly, it’s anybody’s guess.
In the meantime, here’s what we can assure you and your colleagues of:
1. We will continue to play it safe, just as we encourage everyone to do right now. We will never risk your health or that of our fantastic Partner Organizations, presenters, and staff. We are in weekly contact with the sponsoring hotels and resorts that you have come to know and love as sites for our M&A Leadership Council training programs. They are taking extraordinary precautions to ensure safe occupancy and operations.
2. We will resume live, on-site trainings as soon as safe and practical. Many organizations will continue to enforce travel bans and cancel in-person group meetings through at least the end of the year. Subject, of course, to the actual on-the-ground public health risks and status of widespread testing and immunizations. Currently, all workshops through September have been canceled by the hotels. There is some possibility that one or more training programs during October-November 2020 could occur, but the hotels and host states have yet to issue further guidance at this time. So, for now, stay tuned, and we’ll keep you posted.
3. Online training programs have proven to be a great success. Like the rest of the world, we have been working very hard to pivot to meaningful and useful online training offerings. With two under our belt now – both with fabulous participant feedback – we hear positive confirmation of some anticipated and important benefits of online trainings over in-person, on-site events.
a. “We can extend the training to additional people on our M&A team.” Believe it or not, we’ve had entire due diligence, and integration teams attend our recent online offerings. Whether you need to send one M&A team member or 50, the beauty of this format is that you can quickly and cost-effectively build these essential skills and insights among your entire M&A team.
b. “The modular training format and schedule helps us concurrently manage other responsibilities while still getting the benefit of the training.” The fact that you can fit in training spread out over a few days and still deliver your full “day job” with excellence is a huge advantage, especially when we are all on remote meetings all day long.
c. “We received tremendous insight and value from the online event.” Thanks once again to our outstanding partner organizations and expert presenters for their unique passion and ability to impart their lessons learned. One recent training participant said, “I could listen to them talk about their insights and experience all day long.” This is a crucial point to emphasize – our online events are less about “front-of-room lecture” and more about discussion and dialogue among peers, supported with the outstanding core learning content and best practices you expect to get from the M&A Leadership Council.
d. “It was way more interactive and participative than I thought possible for an online workshop.” Now it’s my turn to thank the participants that joined us in our two prior online programs. You folks were awesome! Part of the “secret sauce” for the Council has always been great discussions, exercises, case studies, and Q&A about the most critical issues. We’ve found that exchange is still a fundamentally important part of each online course, and that interactive learning can and does occur via “open mic and on-webcam” discussions as much as it does in a big room, in-person event.
As we build on this success, we would love to host you for one of our monthly online training programs soon. Don’t miss our next event, The Art of M&A® Integration Online, July 21-23!
Very best regards,
Mark Herndon
Chairman, M&A Leadership Council