I worked in the private sector in hostile takeover situations.
We would come in knowing the employees hated our guts and wanted to make us look as bad as possible.
After we eliminated a few divisions on late Friday afternoons the attitude of those who remained got a whole lot better.
They decided they feared us more than they hated us.
Many became solid employees at that point.
P.S. Of course in the first year we never believed a word they said about anything. We checked and double checked and triple checked using a variety of audit techniques—and as we caught the liars we fired them on the spot.
Yeah, I had that same experience in every M&A project.