1When the merger was finally announced, the whole department fell silent for a long moment.
2Rumours about job losses had spread around for weeks, and trust in management was low.
3Claire, the new director, called an open meeting with everyone before the end of that day.
4She openly admitted that she did not yet have all of the answers people wanted from her.
5Instead, she promised the team honest written updates every single Friday, whatever the news might be.
6She asked each of the team leaders to list the skills their people already had.
7Those lists quickly became the basis for retraining loyal staff rather than making immediate redundancies.
8Some employees still chose to leave, but the great majority of the team decided to stay and learn.
9Six months later, productivity had quietly recovered to the level it had held before the merger.
10More importantly, people had started to bring their problems to Claire instead of quietly hiding them away.
11Her lesson was a simple one: during times of change, people follow honesty far more than certainty.