But however difficult it is for the outside world to contemplate, it's even more traumatic for the people working at Cadbury. For this doesn't just have the potential to be a clash of countries, but also a clash of cultures. And you can bet that cultural war will be waged on the battleground of language.
They may not know it yet - very few organisations do - but the success or failure of Kraft's purchase might depend on the words each side wields.
Why? Most obviously, there's the tension between the American approach to business English and that of Brits like me. ‘Two countries divided by a common language' said George Bernard Shaw, and it's still true. We have clients working in international companies who still squirm when their corporately-imposed spell-check insists on spellings like ‘color'. But it's not just about simple things like spelling, or the odd bits of grammar. The whole tenor of American business English - learned by MBA students the world over - often sounds verbose and pretentious to British ears. By contrast the Brits are accused of a kind of polite woolliness (accidental or, at times, deliberate) that makes business harmonious but slow, and occasionally downright confusing.
Take a phrase like ‘You might want to consider doing it this way...'. Joan O'Connor of leadership consultancy Think Purple says this phrase stuck in her head from her time working in a big Anglo-Dutch business. She says: "What the Brits meant was, ‘Do it like this', but wanted to make their instruction more polite. But the Dutch took it as a genuine suggestion that you could take on board or not. They were really confused when they got criticised if they ignored it."
But look at the potential union of Kraft and Cadbury and there's an even greater cultural chasm than mere nationality. Kraft has taken a beating in the British press for its supposedly ruthless treatment of another British brand it took over, Terry's. As a result Kraft is cast as the embodiment of corporate capitalism - target-driven, unforgiving, brutal.
This is quite a contrast to how Cadbury sees itself. ‘Performance-driven, values-led' is its mantra, and the second bit is important. Scratch the surface and Cadbury's Quaker origins are not very far away. Yes, it's successful, but it's a business with more heart than your average, too. It's something that even those of us outside the company have a sense of, and it makes Cadbury quite special.
Which is why language will be so important. The language an organisation uses tells you tons about its culture. Does it talk about ‘operational excellence', or ‘doing everyday things better'? Does it refer to its ‘corporate responsibility key performance indicators', or ‘what we believe in'? When we run writing workshops, most employees rail against the meaningless corporatespeak of their own organisations, saying it leaves them cold, bored, uninspired, demotivated and cynical. And that's when they're being polite.
Yet rarely is this loathed language actually imposed; it just sort of emerges. And because almost everyone in an organisation writes - from the CEO's emails about corporate strategy, to the IT team's note on the broken printer - everyone has the power to shape the culture they're part of. It's why HR's role is so important. For many employees, the words that come out of HR are the most tangible evidence of the organisation's real ethos. So ‘headcount-related synergy realignments' make you seem weaselly and defensive, whereas ‘redundancies' at least get you points for honesty.
One of our clients, the head of brand for people and culture at a FTSE 100 company, has trained over 3,000 people to write in his company's ‘tone of voice'. That means the sort of language it uses to communicate internally and externally, and how that language reflects what makes the company different. But it's not really just about writing; writing is a Trojan horse to get people thinking about the culture they want to be part of.
Which is why defining that tone of voice will probably be the answer for Cadbury if it is taken over by Kraft. Instead of letting different managers in different places battle for stylistic supremacy, they need to agree how they want the new company to sound. Senior people need to agree that spirit, and stick to it themselves in what they write (or what they sign off). Because every organisation has a tone of voice - intentionally or not. The canny ones choose to shape it, and not be shaped by it.
Neil Taylor is creative director of language consultancy The Writer and the author of Brilliant Business Writing.
