Lessons to Learn in Leading a Team Through a Reorganization

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Reorganizations are a normal regular part of the way companies evolve to continue to be successful in the markets that they serve. As consumer habits change, competitors change to take advantage of new opportunities, other companies must adapt as well to stay competitive and meet their customers where they are. 

Reorgs can cause a lot of turmoil and fear within an organization. Leadership needs to lead their teams with confidence through the entire process to ensure that employees remain engaged and focused on their goals. 

Why Do Companies Reorganize?

1. The market has changed

Sometimes the market changes around an organization. What worked historically for that organization will no longer work and the company must update and adapt to be able to take advantage of the new realities of the marketplace. A good example is when digital music distribution replaced physical distribution at the turn of the 21st century. The record labels resisted initially and then moved to support digital sales and streaming services.

2. The organization has changed

Organizations like people evolve and change over time. Occasionally there are big marketplace changes that force companies to quickly adapt, but often there are slow incremental changes that begin to add up bit by bit to completely change the company. When leadership realizes this has happened they have to reorganize the company to ensure that it can operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. 

3. Leadership messaging isn't making it to the frontline

Communication is very important to the success of an organization. You want to ensure that the vision and messaging of your senior leadership are making it to the frontline as quickly and as accurately as impossible. As organizations grow the way that communication happens can be slowed, or gaps can appear so key teams do not hear about important updates. When this happens companies must change their structures to ensure that there are clear lines of communication both up and down the organization structure. 

4. Improved control

In response to changes in the market, companies naturally grow and shrink over time. As the size of a company grows or shrinks so must the leadership and support structures that exist to support them. Companies will add or remove the number of managers, support teams or insert or remove layers of leadership to ensure that those managing have enough time to get to everyone without any unnecessary downtime. 

The Biggest Risk in Reorgs

There are natural risks that are associated with any reorg. Employees are often fearful of what the reorganization men's for them. The biggest fear that any employee has during a reorganization is if they will come out of it with a job. They know that there are often layoffs associated with reorgs and they naturally begin to worry about what that means for their own role. Beyond having a place in the new organization employees wonder if they will be on the same team, who they will report to if their responsibilities will change significantly. All of this can become a significant distraction if the reorganization is not handled appropriately leading to reduced productivity. 

How to Lead Your Team in Reorgs

Be Transparent

Your team is hungry for news. Be honest with them about what you do and do not know. People assume their leadership knows the plan and expect to hear about it. When companies announce reorganizations but do not immediately announce how all of the teams will be impacted, the individual team members will attempt to fill in the blanks. Rather than assuming the best, there is a tendency for people to imagine the worse case scenarios and with those being the most dramatic and exciting, they tend to be the rumors that make the rounds the quickest. Leadership can avoid this by laying out exactly what they know and don't know regularly throughout the reorganization. 

Come With a Plan

Often companies know they need to reorganize and decide to announce their intentions before they have worked through all of the details. In these situations, the leadership team won't have answers to important questions like, who stays or goes, where you work, what your job will look like after the changes are complete. The amount of lost productivity and disengagement among teams can quickly run rampant. Don't do this to your team. Take the time to collaborate with your senior leadership teams and think through all of the possible scenarios and have plans in place. Announce your reorganization so that you are ready to communicate the full plan immediately thereafter. 

Be Honest

Many times a leadership team can feel that they need to manage the messaging that goes down to the frontline. They will say things like we are adjusting to ensure synergies exist between teams that allow us to maximize marketplace dynamics. I'm not sure the leadership even understands what they mean when they communicate in this kind of corporate speak. Whether the changes are for good reasons or bad reasons, give your team the credit they deserve and trust them with the truth. If the company is doing well that's easy, just say so. If the company is struggling you should be honest with that as well. If you try to hide that the team will see right through it and start coming up with rumors and other reasons you're not being clear about what's going on.  Avoid that by being completely honest with them. 

Give Time

When major changes occur to who people work for, work with and what they'll be doing this can be exciting or scary. Regardless of what these changes are, it's a good idea to give your team time to process the changes. They will potentially be filled with a lot of different emotions. They can be excited to take on a new challenge or filled with anxiety over having to learn a whole new role or team. Let your team process these changes and come back with a fresh perspective by giving them time immediately after the announcement to take off before returning. Then allow the teams time to adapt and grow into their new roles so that they can perform at the highest level. 

Be Flexible

No matter how good your plan is there will be things that come up during the reorganization that no one thought of. New team dynamics, workload balancing, customer interactions will occur that will cause parts of the plan to work less effectively than anticipated. Be prepared to make incremental changes to the plan as time goes on to ensure that you both maintain the new structure and also optimize it to best support the needs of your business and teams. The last thing you want is to ignore these changes and drive resentment or disengagement from the team. This can only lead to more major reorgs down the road as you find the new strategy didn't work. 

Reorganizations can be both scary and exciting for teams. I have been through many myself and have felt a range of emotions throughout them. What have reorgs been like for you? Do you find them exciting or do you experience anxiety?  I want to hear about it!  Tell me your story below!