Reorganizations – Good, Bad, or Ugly
The answer is that they can be all three but need not be bad or ugly. Reorganizations of your company, are they something that needs to be done and how frequently? I recently had lunch with a good friend who was still at a company I had run at one point. The company had recently been reorganized and we were discussing the merits of the re-org. He made a great statement that caught my attention and made me think more. “If your business has not been re-org’d in the past 18 to 24 months with lay-offs then you should do it.” What he meant and I agree is that if you have not re-imagined your business and moved to change the business to better serve your customers or improve overall efficiency then you should.
As a business leader you should think about how your organization’s structure works and how it can be better all the time. Re-organizing your company can be a very good thing. Usually what makes it bad is the execution on the change. So I offer the following tips for carrying out a re-organization that is neither bad nor ugly:
- Base the changes on the needs of the customer not on weaknesses in staff. I made the mistake of changing an organization once because I was protecting a weak manager. Don’t do it as that action will come back to haunt you.
- Seek the guidance of only key managers and be careful that the managers don’t have a big stake in the game or their help will be biased.
- Communicate the reasons behind the re-organization clearly up front and then tell the team again. Have the message down and have it come straight from you. Answer the questions openly and honestly. If the reasons for the change are clear you will gain buy-in more rapidly.
- Immediately move to discuss how the organizational change affects each person and their role in the company. The faster you can do this the faster the company will heal and move forward.
- If asked will there be more changes – answer that there will be additional changes if you can serve the customer better.
One last thing I would have you consider. Changing your organization every other week is just as destructive. No one settles in to their role. No one buys in to the goals – there is a lack of accountability and every team member starts waiting for the next re-organization. So as will all things balance must be achieved.
There are probably thousands of books written about leading change. Most managers stink at it – but if you embrace this as part of your longer term planning process you can make re-organizations Good not Bad and Ugly.