Eating the M&A Elephant (Intro)

When it comes to M&A, the elephant in the room is size: thousands of tasks, spread across workstreams and phases, each demanding attention. At a recent Integration Command session, a participant asked how many tasks an integration really involves. My answer, “often in the thousands”, landed with a gulp. Because yes, the scale is overwhelming if you look at it all at once. That’s why Integration Command exists: an immersive simulation where leadership teams pressure-test decisions, triage priorities, and feel the pace of integration before the real plan is even written.

What they discover is simple but powerful: you don’t eat the M&A elephant in one bite. The skill is in breaking complexity into milestones, aligning leaders around what matters most, and focusing energy on the tasks that protect and grow value. That’s the edge Integration Command delivers, and why it has become more than a planning tool, it’s leadership training under pressure. [Click to read the full story on Substack]