Regarding your secret reorg
I got a slack message this morning that read:
"Have you heard anything about a possible reorg?"
Unsure about how to respond I simply typed:
"I have..."
Few words whispered in the office halls instill more anxiety that “reorg”.
Are you planning a reorg? If so let me share some thoughts from somebody who’s been on both sides of a reorg: planning it and being subjected to it.
First of all no matter how careful you want to be, word’s gonna get out. And it is going to happen much earlier than you can expect.
People will know something is coming. They will come up with their own versions of the reorg and share those with others. If you don’t get ahead of rumors they will kill confidence and moral of your team. And they will it make the reorg that much harder.
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality
The longer you take from planning to execution the more likely it is for rumors to start. Leaders drag reorg planning for too long.
Here’s what you should do to avoid leaks:
- Change ways of working before you change organigrams. If you can’t, it means your teams are not collaborating. Address collaboration before you do a reorg. Teams that don’t collaborate will suffer from culture shock when forced together by a reorg.
- Talk to more people. Don’t validate your master plan with stakeholders. Instead recruit people early. Approach organizational design as a group exercise slowly and organically.
- Plan for a small incremental rollout. Org changes might happen at once but you can start socializing the key ideas and the strategy for the reorg much earlier. Rollout design is an unappreciated job. But it has huge impact on effectiveness and adoption.
I’ve seen secret reorgs planned for over 2 years!
Nothing kills morale like runaway rumors.
Get ahead of it and execute a roll out plan now.