How do you build trust on a newly formed or post-merger leadership team?

Build trust on a newly formed or post-merger leadership team by deliberately creating shared experience, rather than waiting for it to develop over months of meetings. An immersive retreat removes the team from the office, gives them a shared challenge that requires depending on each other, and surfaces and diffuses old rivalries and assumptions — compressing months of relationship-building into a few days, then reinforcing the new patterns for 30 days.

Why do post-merger leadership teams struggle?

Post-merger leadership teams struggle because they have no shared history, language, or trust, and often carry rivalries and differing assumptions from the organizations they came from. On paper they are one team; in practice they are several factions, and decisions slow as everyone protects their own turf.

When should a new executive team do a retreat?

A new or merged executive team should do a retreat early — before unproductive patterns harden. The first 90 days set the operating norms; an intentional retreat in that window establishes trust and shared standards faster than waiting for them to emerge on their own.

← Field Notes

Situations 6 min read

A retreat for a newly formed or post-merger leadership team.

A brand-new executive team — whether assembled from outside hires or fused by a merger — has no shared trust, no shared language, and often no shared loyalty yet. On paper it's one team. In practice it's several factions and a title. Waiting for that to resolve on its own is the most expensive choice a leader can make.

The hidden cost of "letting it gel"

The instinct is to give it time — people will settle in, learn each other, find a rhythm. Sometimes they do. More often, the first 90 days quietly set the norms, and the wrong ones harden: turf-protection, polite distance, decisions relitigated behind closed doors. Every week without real trust is a week of slower decisions, duplicated effort, and energy spent managing each other instead of building the business. The cost doesn't show up on a line item. It shows up in missed quarters.

What a retreat does that time can't

Trust isn't built in status meetings. It's built through shared experience — ideally a hard one, faced together. An immersive retreat compresses months of that into a few days: it removes the team from the office and its roles, gives them a challenge that forces genuine interdependence, and deliberately surfaces and diffuses the old rivalries and assumptions each person brought with them. People who arrived as cautious strangers leave having actually relied on one another.

We've done exactly this

A virtual federal team drawn from four formerly competing branches became one executive team — and the client expanded the engagement to two more layers. A team of star executives poached from rivals, fighting for turf, became a unit with a 178% gain in teaming behaviors. New and merged teams are some of the most rewarding work we do.

The federal team → The poached all-stars →

Do it early

The best time is before the wrong patterns set — ideally in the first 90 days, when the team is still forming its norms and a deliberate intervention can shape them. The second-best time is now. A new team that becomes a real team early doesn't just avoid the cost of dysfunction; it gets a head start every competitor without that trust is missing.

A retreat for a newly formed or post-merger leadership team.

The hidden cost of "letting it gel"

What a retreat does that time can't

Do it early

New team? Make it a real one — fast.