home  /  academy  /  the-integrator
reading path

You have just closed

An owner in the first hundred days after an acquisition

Buying the company was the transaction. This is the work.

Why this order

Practical playbook first, because you are short of time, then the research on what integration actually is, then the argument that integration is where synergy is earned rather than assumed, and finally the people questions, which are what most integrations actually founder on.

The path

1
The Complete Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions: Process Tools to Support M&A Integration at Every Level
Timothy J. Galpin and Mark Herndon · Third edition, 2014

The operational playbook. Use it as a reference, not a read-through.

2
The Process of Postmerger Integration: A Review and Agenda for Future Research
Melissa E. Graebner, Koen H. Heimeriks, Quy Nguyen Huy, and Eero Vaara · Academy of Management Annals, 2017

The research view of what integration is, which is more than systems and org charts.

3
The Synergy Solution: How Companies Win the Mergers and Acquisitions Game
Mark L. Sirower and Jeffery M. Weirens · 2022

Sirower’s constructive answer to his own earlier warning: how the winners actually do it.

4
Who: The A Method for Hiring
Geoff Smart and Randy Street · 2008

Because the retention and hiring decisions in the first year decide the outcome.

5
Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?
Steven N. Kaplan, Mark M. Klebanov, and Morten Sørensen · The Journal of Finance, 2012

The evidence on which leadership traits actually predict performance, for the person you keep or replace.

Where this leaves you

You will have a hundred-day plan with named owners, and a clear view of which people you cannot afford to lose.

Acquisition Conciergeorientation · not legal, tax or valuation advice
Glad to help. Tell me roughly where you are and how much time you actually have, honestly rather than aspirationally, and I will pick the two or three works that will pay for their reading time fastest. If what you need is a program rather than a book, or an advisor rather than either, I will say so.