The Cultural Bridging Fundamentals (CBF^©) diagnostic process is a tool developed by ICM. It allows companies to pinpoint gaps and similarities between the corporate cultures of two or more organizations in order to reduce the cycle time of post-merger integration. What is true for integration is also true for cultural change. The company can measure the gap that separates its current culture from its target culture that responds to the changes in its environment. It also allows a company undergoing rapid and profound change to monitor its own cultural transformation.

The CBF^© methodology involves:

• A 48-item standardized online questionnaire with additional company-specific items;
• Face-to-face interviews to develop company-specific items and gather personal views on the integration progress and on the teams’ state of mind;
• Focus groups to engage a broader range of people in the diagnostic process and to enrich interpretation of the data;
• An in-depth analysis of underlying assumptions and beliefs that form the cultural base of the organization(s).

ICM then holds a working meeting with the senior team where they review the data and make decisions about how to move forward. This process can be downwardly applied to individual teams, functions, or BUs, according to the terms chosen by the executive team.

Client reference for the CBF^©: Air-France / KLM; Aventis Pasteur; Volvo Trucks; EADS Telecom