The Tribe Report 4. The Change Management Issue | Page 5

“WE MADE A VERY CONSCIOUS
DECISION TO TREAT COMING
TOGETHER AS A PARTNERSHIP
RATHER THAN A STRAIGHT-OUT
ACQUISITION.”
Exelon’s recent purchase of Constellation Energy
made the new company the largest energy provider
in the country. It also merged two distinctly different
cultures – one more process focused, the other
more entrepreneurial.
“Right off the bat, we all came together in a room
and had a great talk about what we wanted this to
look like,” said Howard Karesh, Director of Internal
Communications for Exelon. “We approached this as
a partnership.”
“They didn’t come in as: We’re acquiring you and
you’re going to do what we tell you to do,” said Melissa
Brooke, Director of Internal Communications at
Constellation. “There was that sense that they wanted
our view, so we weren’t put on the defensive.”
Besides partnership, another objective of Karesh
and Brooke’s work together was to be honest with
employees. “Melissa and I agreed that we owed it to
our employees to treat them like adults,” Karesh said.

“Our goal was to be as open and clear as regulatory law
would allow.”
For instance, the merger communications never
skirted the issue that there would be some job loss.
“What’s the point in hiding it? We said the merger was
not about synergies, but in every merger there are
redundant positions,” Karesh said. “Difficult as it is,
some jobs would have to be eliminated.”
They also made a commitment to communicate
the same messaging to Exelon and Constellation
employees. Although there remained some logistical
communications that differed for the two companies,
Brooke said, “We wanted to make sure that whatever
story we were telling was common to everybody. We
started that integration process early on.”
“Some companies choose not to tell employees the full
story,” Karesh said. “I think this works against them
because employees h