So what is the answer for Cadbury-Kraft and other merging companies? In order to retain even some of the essence of Cadbury’s unique culture, both organisations need to accept a new third way. Here the company would proactively attempt to make changes across the whole organisation to cultivate the positive aspects from each of the previous cultures to build a new compromise culture.

Of course change of any nature can be challenging. A recent report from Personnel Today states that attempts to rectify a toxic culture are likely to fail due to employee inertia and resistance. Resistance can take on many forms including bad-mouthing the organisation (internally and externally), purposely ignoring changes to one’s role, and even sabotage. While embarking on culture change to achieve a new third way, it is important to understand the barriers before wasting a lot of time and money! Causes of resistance include bad communication, group inertia, lack of trust, employee uncertainty and lack of change justification.

Taking a quote from Alexander Graham Bell, "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us". For any organisational culture change to be successful employees will need help in accepting the losses and embracing the opportunities. However for this to be possible organisations shouldn’t be so short sighted that when an opportunity has arisen to learn and excel from the culture of a merging organisation, they smother it in order to protect their own.