Two organizations with a different way of working rarely clash on the paper organizational chart. They clash on what a role means in practice. A sales manager in one organization decides on discounts independently; in the other, that goes through an approval line of three steps. On paper, both functions are called the same. In practice, the authority, the pace, and the expectation of what someone does independently differ. That gap is where role confusion arises, not in the job structure.
A role is more than a job description. It consists of authority, information position, and expectation regarding initiative. If two cultures differ structurally in this respect, it is not enough to say who gets which title. Someone who is used to deciding independently and who, in the new structure, must first consult others, experiences that as an actual change in function, even if the title stays the same. This often happens unnoticed, because no one has explicitly named it as part of the integration.
Before roles are merged or placed side by side, there is a question that must not be skipped: should this part actually be combined? Two cultures that are far apart are not automatically a problem that needs to be solved by aligning them. Sometimes it is better to let a team with its own way of working exist alongside another team, and to place the connection at a higher level. That consideration belongs with when integrating destroys value and with what you deliberately keep separate. Keeping roles clear does not start with filling in an organizational chart, but with the choice of what actually needs to be integrated.
With two cultures that work differently, there is a good chance that two people are effectively fulfilling the same role, even if their functions are called something different. An operational manager in one organization does work that in the other organization falls to a team leader. Without making that overlap explicit, a period arises in which both people think they are responsible, or in which no one feels responsible because everyone assumes the other will pick it up. The question what you do when two people have the same role therefore belongs early on the list, not as a personnel matter but as a structural question: who has which authority, from what moment, and who has been informed about it.
Not every role carries equal weight in a merger or acquisition. Some people have knowledge, customer relationships, or internal networks that are not recorded anywhere else. If their role becomes unclear, or if they get the feeling of falling outside the new structure, the risk is not just unrest but the departure of something that cannot be replaced with a new hire. Before you rearrange roles, it is therefore useful to know who your key people are in an acquisition and how those roles relate to the rest of the structure. Overlap or unclarity hits these people the hardest, and they are the ones who can least afford to wait months for clarity.
The months in which no one knows exactly who does what are not neutral. Roles that remain unclear feel, to the people holding them, like a sign that their position is not being taken seriously, and that is one of the reasons why people leave in the unclear months. Two cultures that are far apart increase that risk, because people are uncertain not only about their role but also about the way of working that will belong to that role. Clarity about roles is therefore not only an organizational matter, it is also a way to prevent value from leaking away early.
Role confusion is never about the question of whether someone is performing well or poorly. It is about the question of whether the role itself has been clearly delineated: what authority, what information, what responsibility, and in relation to whom. That delineation is exactly what the integration office is meant for: not as an assessment of individuals, but as a structure that records who does what, what dependencies exist between roles, and which decisions are still open about what will and will not be merged.
If a role disappears or changes drastically, the knowledge tied to it sometimes disappears too, especially if that knowledge was never written down but existed only in one person's head. That risk is greater the more two cultures differ in how they handle recording and sharing information. How you limit that risk is connected to how you prevent knowledge from leaving with someone at the moment cultures clash over who is supposed to know what.
Once roles have been delineated, the question remains what that role actually involves in terms of work in practice, and whether that work stays the same in the new, merged organization. The work scan of FTE TO AI calculates per task which part of the work can be taken over by AI, which provides an additional starting point when redesigning roles after a merger or acquisition: not just who gets which role, but also what changes structurally within that role.
Vraag maar wat er op Day 1 moet staan, of wat integreren juist kapotmaakt.
Answers come from this site’s knowledge base. Not tailored advice, and not a scan of your company.