Dear Leah,
I'm Chief People Officer overseeing the integration of a company we bought eight months ago. The deal was sold as a "merger of equals" but everyone knows we're the buyer.
The target company's leadership team is exceptionally talented - which is why we bought them - but they're increasingly vocal about our "corporate bureaucracy" killing their innovation culture. Meanwhile, our existing leadership team is frustrated that the new people "don't understand our standards and processes."
Last month, three key leaders from the target company handed in their notice, citing "cultural incompatibility." Our CEO is now questioning whether we should have done the deal at all, but we've already invested £50 million. The integration committee meetings have become tense affairs where both sides speak in code.
I feel like I'm mediating a divorce
whilst trying to plan a wedding.
How do I bridge two cultures without
losing the very talent we paid so much to buy?
- Deal or No Deal
Dear “Deal or No Deal”
You're living every People Officer's nightmare - trying to blend oil and water whilst everyone watches the £50 million investment potentially evaporate.
The good news? This is fixable.
The bad news? You're trying to solve a human problem with corporate tools.
DIAGNOSIS:
You're dealing with two tribes protecting their identity whilst mourning what they've lost. The "merger of equals" language was well-intentioned but fundamentally dishonest, and now everyone's paying the price for that fiction. Your existing team feels invaded, the acquired team feels colonised, and neither trusts the other's motives.
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM:
There's no shared vision of what success looks like post-integration. Your existing team is measuring success by compliance and consistency. The acquired team is measuring it by autonomy and innovation. Both are right, and both are wrong. You need a third way that honours what made each culture valuable whilst creating something new.
THE PATH TO RESOLVING IT:
Stop trying to integrate processes and start integrating people. Create mixed project teams working on genuinely exciting challenges that require both cultures' strengths. Let your "bureaucratic" people learn why speed matters, and let your "innovative" people understand why standards exist. Success breeds trust faster than any workshop ever will.
YOUR ROLE GOING FORWARDS:
Get specific about value retention.
What exactly are you afraid of losing from each culture?
Name it, measure it, protect it.
Create safe spaces for grief.
Both sides have lost something.
Acknowledge that before asking them to build something new.
Reframe the narrative.
This isn't about one culture winning—
it's about creating competitive advantage through cultural fusion.
Consider bringing in external facilitation to help both leadership teams have the honest conversations they're avoiding. Sometimes an outside voice can say what everyone's thinking but no one dares to speak.
