Integration fatigue — the silent value killer in M&A

We obsess about TSA exits, synergy capture, and execution dashboards in acquisitions and carve-outs — rightly so. But there’s another, quieter risk that’s often missed: integration fatigue. In one PE-backed buy-and-build I worked on, the team was constantly balancing BAU with transformation initiatives while serial acquisitions left almost no room to reset. What began as a high-energy post-close phase quickly gave way to decision latency and execution drag.

Symptoms are subtle at first: decisions that used to take hours start taking days; people begin “waiting for clarity” rather than owning outcomes; and accountability becomes fuzzy — everyone assumes someone else is handling it. Left unchecked, that fatigue becomes structural and eats away at the value you expected to capture.

How we addressed it — practical moves that worked:

1. Re-anchored priorities into 30-60-90 sprints. Instead of a single 100-day plan that everyone interpreted differently, we split work into outcome-led sprints, each with clear owners and measures of success. This made progress visible and manageable.

2. Reduced decision drag. We defined who can say “Go” for common decision types and documented the guardrails. The point was not to centralize, but to remove pointless escalations.

3. Celebrated momentum. We tracked small wins — TSA exits, standalone launches, rapid decisions — and highlighted consistency. That small cultural nudge changed behavior faster than any memo.
   
   

The results were real:

€170m in validated synergies, tracked monthly, and about 50% fewer escalations in SteerCo and TSA review boards. Those numbers don’t come from heroic last-minute efforts; they come from keeping the integration engine oiled so people can execute.

If you’re running multiple integrations or advising a PE sponsor, look for the weeds. Fixing integration fatigue is not flashy, but it’s one of the highest-ROI actions you can take.