SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How effectively does your organization manage reorganizations?
- Very — our reorgs are smooth and effective: 6.44%
- Mostly — our reorgs go well but not without issues: 35.25%
- Somewhat — we don’t do a great job with reorgs: 27.12%
- Not at all — our reorgs are painful and problematic: 31.19%
Disorganized Reorganization. Why are we so bad at this? Organizations need to change and people need to be put in new roles. Those shifts turn into disasters for several reasons. First, poor communication. The rationale for the change and everyone’s new responsibilities aren’t clearly articulated which leads to confusion and frustration. Second, poor talent assessment and role definition. Reorgs can be a great opportunity to put talent in bigger roles but more often than not, we fail to assess talent properly and instead frustrate some of our best performers. Think through the reorg and roles then communicate more effectively as you go through the process.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, author of “Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results” and “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”