Field Notes is a series by The Beautiful Truth, where the TBT team share their contemporary takes on workplace challenges. This edition explores business storytelling.

There was a time when most people spent their entire careers with a single company, climbing the ladder within an organisation that looked much the same for decades. Today that world feels almost mythical, not only because employees move more often, but because companies themselves are constantly merging, splitting and reshaping. 

In 2024, companies announced mergers and acquisitions worth more than $3.4 trillion, up around 12 per cent on the previous year, as boards sought growth in a slowing economy and used restructuring to signal agility to investors. Across industries, once-stable firms are being carved up, combined or reimagined. 

Yet beneath the headlines about efficiency and integration lies a more human story. Corporate restructuring is not just a financial strategy; it is a social event that rewires the fabric of work. As The Economist observed, today’s “deal economy” is driven by a mix of cheap capital, AI disruption and a belief among executives that the current window for bold moves may soon close. At the same time, slower growth and rising costs have led many firms to flatten hierarchies and reduce headcount in the name of agility. 

The result is a period of deep uncertainty for workers. According to the Financial Times, US companies announced almost one million job cuts in the year to September 2025, the highest since the pandemic, while hiring plans fell to their lowest level since 2009. Corporate giants from Amazon and Paramount to Procter & Gamble and Puma are shedding tens of thousands of office-based roles, often citing the efficiency gains promised by AI and automation. Economists have begun calling it a “white-collar recession”, as knowledge workers face the sharpest contraction in stability and identity in more than a decade. 

When companies merge, spin out or restructure, the language used is often cold and impersonal. Leaders talk about alignment, integration and productivity. But underneath the spreadsheets, legal documents and new branding are a group of people trying to make sense of who they are in a world that suddenly feels unfamiliar. 

New hierarchies start to emerge, long-standing friendships fracture, and the daily rhythms that once grounded work can disappear almost overnight. What gets lost in those moments of restructuring, mergers, and acquisitions is not only stability but meaning. 

In 2024 alone, more than 7,700 companies changed hands, reshaping industries from energy to technology. The focus is often on the speed and scale of integration. Yet what determines whether a newly formed organisation flourishes or falters is rarely its financial model. It is whether people can find one another again and rebuild a shared sense of purpose.   

Losing the nest

For years, Airmedtec was a small but vital division within AT&S, a global leader in microelectronics. Its people shared systems, offices and the security of being part of something larger. They were a team within a bigger whole, confident in their place and the value they brought. 

Then, in 2023, everything changed. AT&S decided to spin out the business, creating a fully independent company. “We didn’t lose a single person,” CEO Daniel Doxsee said. “We moved as an entire team.” Yet what disappeared was the invisible nest – the comfort of belonging to a known structure. For some, independence felt like liberation; for others, like loss. 

Moments like these expose a truth about change that numbers alone can’t show. When structure shifts, identity does too. People don’t just lose logos or titles; they lose a map of meaning. 

The black hole effect

David Ulrich, often called the father of modern HR, argues that belonging is not a feeling but a foundation. It is what gives work its sense of meaning, identity and accountability. When belonging is disrupted, people experience what he describes as a black hole – a psychological gap where connection used to live.
 
In that gap, orientation matters more than reassurance. “People are more likely to support a change when they understand it and when they participate in it,” Ulrich explains. Belonging grows not from comfort but from clarity and involvement. 

That insight shaped how Airmedtec began to rebuild itself. Under private ownership, the pace quickened, expectations grew and roles expanded. Doxsee’s first instinct was to reassure people that everything would be fine, but he soon realised that wasn’t enough. People didn’t need soothing words, they needed to understand the landscape – where the business was going, what was still uncertain and how they could help shape the path ahead. 

Orientation became the work. Communication was no longer about confidence, but context. By sharing information openly and inviting contribution, leaders began to re-create trust.   

A shared responsibility

When belonging fractures, new patterns of leadership often emerge. At Airmedtec, influence no longer followed hierarchy alone. People who had never seen themselves as leaders began to take responsibility for stabilising teams and rebuilding routines. Small acts like mentoring a colleague or reviving a tradition became the scaffolding for a new culture. 

This redistribution of leadership sent a clear signal: belonging is not something handed down from the top, but something built collectively. As teams found new rhythms, the sense of shared responsibility deepened. 

Ulrich describes the experience of belonging through three intertwined needs: to believe, to become and to belong. People need to believe that their work matters, to become through growth and learning, and to belong through relationships and recognition. When any of these fall away, engagement and purpose follow. 

For Airmedtec, rebuilding those three elements became more important than any structural integration plan. 

The stories we tell at work define how we move through uncertainty. ​The livestream is for communications, corporate affairs, and culture professionals who believe in the power of storytelling to make strategy stick, help culture flourish, and bring meaning to change. Join The Beautiful Truth on 10th December.