Mitchell Lee Marks
Current or past clients include Pfizer, AOL, Intel, Lafarge/Holcim, Motorola, AT&T, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Unisys, Hewlett Packard, Lucent Technologies, Abbott Laboratories, BNP Paribas, Johnson & Johnson, Scios, KPMG, Imperial Oil of Canada, BP Amoco, Molson Breweries, Bank of America, Citibank, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, MCA, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Blue Shield of California, Los Angeles County, the March of Dimes, and others in the financial, manufacturing, healthcare, entertainment, high technology, government, publishing, consumer products, and communications industries.
Mitch is the author of seven books – including Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances which is highly regarded as the “bible” of integration management and now in its second edition. He has published scores of articles in practitioner and scholarly journals including Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Resource Management, and Human Organization.
Mitch received his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1981, where he conducted the first studies on human and cultural aspects of mergers, acquisitions, and other major organizational transitions. His research on organizational change and transition, as well as on employee motivation and productivity, has been recognized in academia including the Outstanding Contribution to Organizational Behavior award from the Academy of Management.
Creating the “New Normal”: Using the Global Pandemic as an Opportunity to Rethink and Rebuild Your Corporate Culture
The impact of the global COVID pandemic is still reverberating in organizations and their people. Leaders cannot control the pandemic, but they can control the extent to which their people, processes and systems deal with it. Leaders can use the pandemic as an opportunity in many ways, ranging from immediate workplace enhancements to longer-term organization development:
•Specifying new expectations for remote work
•Balancing onsite and remote work dynamics
•Identifying opportunities to reduce inefficiency and enhance effectiveness at the
individual, team and organization-wide level
•Clarifying post-pandemic career paths and opportunities
•Rethinking and rebuilding corporate culture
•Assessing and enhancing organizational designThis presentation highlights case examples of workplace leaders being proactive in not just contending with pandemic fallout but using it to enhance employee productivity, teamwork and overall organizational effectiveness. And, it provides practical tools to aid in creating the New Normal.
- Building and Leading Your Desired Organization: Making Change Happen
The only constant is change, but employees resist change. This workshop tells what goes wrong with failed organizational change efforts and what works in the successful cases. It presents a model for effective organizational change–letting go of the past, dealing with the neutral zone, and embracing the new. It shows executives and managers how to design and implement desired change by articulating their desired organization, overcoming employee resistance to change, understanding and addressing the rigors of transition, and refreezing the desired new organization. The workshop provides practical actions and case examples for harnessing human, cultural, and strategic dynamics into a desired organization. - Maintaining Productivity During Organizational Change
This presentation for team leaders explains the stages employees go through during times of intense organizational change and shows how to manage each stage: letting go of the old, dealing with the neutral zone, and accepting the new. It provides proven tactics for maintaining productivity during transition and getting employees focused on the realities and opportunities in the post-transition organization. - Leading and Managing Your Organization to Excellence
The pressures on executives in today’s work organizations are substantial and varied, including increased globalization, rapid technological advances, changing market conditions and evolving customer expectations. Amidst all these forces, executives must produce short-term results to satisfy superiors and shareholders, while developing a long-term perspective to build customer loyalty and employee motivation. This presentation shows leaders how to balance competing pressures while producing desired business results. It helps participants distinguish between “managing” and “leading” and determine their own style and appropriate actions for moving themselves, their work teams, and their organizations forward. - Leading Effective, Productive, and Engaging Meetings
Meetings, meetings, meetings…it seems like all business people do these days is go from one meeting to another. We’ve all been in meetings that seem like a lot more could get done in a lot less time or, worse, yet, that seem to accomplish nothing! This workshop highlights the key complaints business people have about attending meetings and shows meeting planners and leaders how to design effective meetings. Attendees will learn what it takes to prepare for an effective meeting, how to conduct an engaging and productive meeting, and how to follow-up after a meeting to ensure its effectiveness. Additional topics include identifying effective and ineffective meeting styles, knowing when and why to have meetings, understanding the roles of leaders and participants in engaging meetings, and learning how to salvage ineffective meetings. - Culture Matters
This presentation provides empirical data showing that corporate culture does matter in achieving financial results. It offers a model for building a desired corporate culture. And, it shows the many ways executives and managers directly and indirectly influence employee behaviors and attitudes. - Making Mergers and Acquisitions Work: Managing the Human, Cultural, and Organizational Issues
If 75% of mergers and acquisitions fail, what makes the other 25% succeed? This presentation looks at the factors that distinguish successful and failed combination. It identifies sources of employee stress and culture clash, and provides specific methods for minimizing their unintended impact on corporate combinations. It also gives advice for building a “one team” mindset and finding and locking in true synergies that make one plus one equal three in a merger or acquisition.
We can help ideate, source and book speakers that aren't on our website, too. Leave an inquiry or call us at