Evolving Workforces
Business Insights | How Leaders Forge Culture Amid Organizational Change
October 8, 2026 4 Minute Read
When organizations change, leaders often focus on what is visible: the office and the org chart. A shared sense of identity and culture is harder to see, but it often determines whether change takes hold.
Studies suggest between 70% and 90% of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) fail, primarily due to cultural challenges.1 This is because employees experience M&A on a personal level. The first things they ask themselves are: “What does this change mean for me, and where do I fit?”
For a transformation to be successful, organizations need to effectively communicate and reinforce the answers to those questions through every stage of change.
What Are Organizational Identity and Culture?
Organizational identity and culture—two closely related but distinct concepts—are at the center of any successful organizational transformation. Identity is the shared, and sometimes contested, understanding of “who we are.” Culture comprises the values, stories, norms and experiences of employees based on that understanding.2 Both are continuously shaped through employee interactions, leadership behaviors and communication.
The Three Stages of Building Culture
During periods of significant organizational change—a merger, acquisition, restructuring or leadership transition—the process of fostering identity and culture becomes especially critical. Three stages define how employees experience that process, and each one gives leaders an opportunity to build a shared sense of purpose and belonging.3
01. The Anticipatory Stage: Shape Expectations Before Day One
The anticipatory stage begins long before any formal change. Leadership communications, recruiting messages, employer branding and team conversations all influence employees’ early perceptions of where they fit in the new organization.
Employee uncertainty emerges when their experience does not align with what leaders say about job security, decision-making authority or which behaviors will be rewarded. This prompts employees to mentally check out, seek opportunities elsewhere or resist the change entirely.
Leaders can reduce this uncertainty by communicating a clear and forward-looking vision of the new organization before implementing any changes. Town halls and manager briefings are effective forums for helping employees understand what the organization is becoming and what they can expect through the transition.
Moreover, organizations should leverage “change champions”—employees who model the organization’s new culture, adopt workplace behaviors and support their colleagues during the transition—as trusted, peer-level voices to reinforce these crucial messages.
02. The Encounter Stage: Make Change a Two-Way Conversation
The encounter stage begins when employees first engage with the new organization. As they interact with new leaders, colleagues, teams and ways of working, they compare expectations with reality. The organization’s new identity takes shape through these early interactions, influenced by whether employees feel that leadership’s narrative aligns with their experience.
Employees are not blank slates. They arrive with established professional identities, institutional knowledge and work methods. When organizations force employees to assimilate rather than collaborate, they risk discarding valuable perspectives and fueling resistance at a time when relationships and trust are needed to sustain the transition.
Leaders who approach change as a two-way process—involving employees in shaping a new identity rather than enforcing it—foster stronger cultural alignment and reduce the resistance that derails transitions.
Organizations should use focus groups, town halls and manager workshops to identify what employees value and where they believe change is needed. With this information, leaders can make better decisions and build the kind of trust that invites employees to actively contribute to the transition.
03. The Metamorphosis Stage: Continually Reinforce the New Culture
The metamorphosis stage is when employees become established members of the organization and develop a sense of identity with it. This culture is negotiated gradually through employees’ everyday interactions with managers and peers, as well as through leadership decisions.
Yet many organizations treat change as a milestone rather than a process, declaring the transition complete after the encounter stage. When they assume that the metamorphosis stage will happen on its own—without clear roles, norms and expectations—they risk creating an identity gap in which employees are structurally aligned but culturally adrift.
Even in a business-as-usual environment, only 44% of employees fully understand what is expected of them at work, making clearly defined roles a key factor of engagement with or without organizational change.4 Therefore, the metamorphosis stage gives leaders an opportunity to provide additional guidance, clarity and support as the culture evolves.
Furthermore, leadership may communicate an organization’s stated identity, but what managers say and do every day validates it. Research shows that managers account for 70% of the variation in engagement across teams, making them the strongest influence on how employees interpret culture and priorities.5 Those who do not consistently model the new culture often see higher turnover.
Achieving the Value of Transformation
Employees are more likely to support change and sustain business momentum when they understand where they fit, believe that leadership’s actions match its stated values and feel connected to the organization’s future. In fact, highly engaged business units are 23% more profitable and employees report a stronger sense of wellbeing and organizational commitment.6
When leaders intentionally build a shared sense of identity and culture through each stage of change, organizational transformations can achieve the value they were designed to create.
Diagnostic Summary for Leaders
| Change Stage | What Employees Are Doing | What Leaders Should Do | Warning Signal |
| Anticipatory | Forming identity expectations before change begins | Communicate a forward-looking vision; deploy change champions | Repeated questions about the change that should have been communicated |
| Encounter | Reconciling expectations with reality through early interactions | Make change a two-way conversation; create structured listening channels; leverage change champions | Early high-performer turnover or disengagement |
| Metamorphosis | Learning and reinforcing the new organizational identity over time | Sustain manager development and cultural reinforcement beyond the formal transition | Clustered turnover by function, geography or manager after year one |
Building culture amid organizational change requires preparing your people and workplace to work together from Day 1. CBRE's Workplace Activation offering integrates communication, learning and hands-on engagement opportunities that build excitement, reduce uncertainty and achieve lasting change. Learn how CBRE can support your next transformation.
2 Karen Lee Ashcraft, Timothy R. Kuhn, and François Cooren, “Constitutional Amendments: ‘Materializing’ Organizational Communication,” Academy of Management Annals 3, no. 1 (2009): 1–64.
3 Fredric M. Jablin, “Organizational Entry, Assimilation, and Disengagement/Exit,” in The New Handbook of Organizational Communication, ed. Fredric M. Jablin and Linda L. Putnam (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 732–818.
4 Ben Wigert and Jim Harter, “The Post-Pandemic Workplace: The Experiment Continues,” Gallup, March 11, 2025.
5 Jim Harter, “World’s Largest Ongoing Study of the Employee Experience,” Gallup, September 3, 2024.
6 Harter, “World’s Largest Ongoing Study of the Employee Experience.”
