Merging with another creative team after an acquisition? Growing or changing the scope of your team? Use this “hopes & fears” exercise to help work through any big transition.

A few years ago, our company went through a major acquisition and merger. Being in the company that was acquired, it was only natural our team had a high level of anxiety, as well as excitement, as we learned we would integrate with an existing creative team already in place at this new-to-us organization. There were so many questions swirling around: Can we keep our current department culture? Will benefits be better or worse? Will we have easier access to resources? Will the work be more, or less, interesting? Will we have to change our workflows/processes? And those were just a few that surfaced publicly! I had led this team long enough to know there were also many unspoken thoughts and potentially concerns that needed to be addressed to make this transition go well for everyone.

Around the same time, I learned about a “Hopes and Fears” exercise included in IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking Toolkit and thought it would be a great tool to use with my team before we embarked more fully on the upcoming integration. The four basic steps are simple and easy to do:

Step 1 - Set Up the Activity

Draw a vertical line in the center of the page on a whiteboard, large sticky pad, or virtual whiteboard (make sure it’s something that can be displayed in your team space afterwards). Label the left half Hopes and the right half Fears.

Step 2 - Capture Hopes and Fears

Have each team member silently write one hope or one fear per sticky note and apply it to the corresponding column.

Step 3 - Play Back, Discuss, Synthesize

After everyone finishes writing, discuss as a group and cluster sticky notes into themes. Circle and title themes.

Step 4 - Let It Persist

Keep this posted in your communal space and gather the team back together periodically to reassess. Place stars on hopes that are realized, and remove fears that melt away. Take time and create concrete steps to address fears that persist too long.

I took an additional step with my team by drawing a circle around the entire chart so we could also have this discussion through the lens of which ones were within our control and which ones were not. For example, we could hope our benefits would be better, but we had no control over that specifically since it’s determined at the corporate level. It allowed us to stay realistic and focused on which ideas we could impact. If it was something deemed out of our control, we moved it to the outside of the circle.

When leading your team through this exercise, it’s imperative that you create a safe place for radical candor. It can only benefit the conversation if everyone believes they can be completely honest without judgment or repercussions. We discussed which hopes and fears made sense to elevate for discussion with senior leadership or on the flip side, possibly negotiated to remain status quo if changes weren’t desired. One of the biggest takeaways after the initial discussion that became obvious was just how much everyone was silently feeling many of the same hopes and fears but had felt too cautious to bring up for fear of being viewed as negative about the change. This resulted in a collective sigh of relief that no one was alone and allowed for a more open and honest discussion going forward.

As a team, we started out with the goal of revisiting our hopes and fears bi-monthly that first year of integration, and after each meeting I would ask for input on the timing for when to meet again. The Hopes and Fears conversation was extremely valuable for our department that first six months of integration, and as we actively addressed many of the fears, saw the realization of many of the hopes and learned what was within our control and what was not, we began to meet less frequently. Eventually we decided as a group that our Hopes and Fears artifact could be photographed for posterity and retired.

Change management can be a daunting prospect for many leaders and comes in many forms. Leveraging a simple tool that promotes open and honest dialogue within your team like this Hopes and Fears exercise can make a difference in successfully managing a major transition. To learn more about IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking Toolkit visit: https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/page/toolkit/activity/hopes-and-fears