Organising and leading change.

A reorganisation almost never fails on paper

The target organisation chart is almost always right. Reorganisations fail between the drawing and reality: midstream, when the old organisation no longer works and the new one does not work yet, when middle managers no longer know whom they report to, when the executive, absorbed by everything else, stops holding the pace he set himself. Six months later, the company has the new chart and the old habits, which is the worst of combinations.

The firm treats organisation and change as a decision to be led, not a diagram to be delivered. It does not design processes, does not roll out tools and does not replace the organisation consultant where the company has one. It helps the executive decide what changes, sequence the transformation, identify who carries it and who slows it, set the pace, and hold it until the new way of working is established.

What makes these decisions hard

The first difficulty is that the structure no longer follows the activity, but nobody can say since when. A company of thirty people is organised around its founder; at seventy, it needs a layer of management that does not yet exist, and the signs are indirect: every decision travels up to the top, managers step on each other, clients no longer know whom to call. The executive feels that something is stuck, but attributes the cause to people rather than to the structure.

The second is that every reorganisation redistributes power, and power is never redistributed in silence. Every manager reads the target chart as a judgement on himself. The resistance that follows is not ill will; it is the normal reaction of people losing a scope, a title or direct access to the executive. Ignoring it means leading a transformation against those who will have to make it live.

The third is time. A reorganisation that drags on exhausts; a rushed one breaks. The right pace is neither the fastest nor the most cautious: it is the one that lets each step become established before the next begins, and it is set at the start, not on the way.

The situations the firm handles

Reorganising a department or a site. The structure has become an obstacle: too many decisions travel up, responsibilities overlap, an essential function has no owner. The firm first establishes how the company actually works, which always differs from the displayed chart, then proposes a target organisation with what it changes for each manager, and a sequence of established steps.

Merging teams after an acquisition. Two cultures, two ways of doing things, two hierarchies, and one company at the end. The question is not which one wins but what to keep from each, and in what order to unify: clients first, tools next, people last, or the reverse. The firm sets that order with the executive and identifies the three or four people whose commitment decides everything else.

Introducing a new process or a new tool. The tool is chosen, the vendor is there, and the company discovers that the change is not technical: it moves tasks, responsibilities and habits. The firm does not intervene on the tool; it intervenes on the decision of who changes what, when, and on what management does with those who cannot manage it.

Redefining responsibilities. Who decides what, up to what amount, with whom, and who is informed. A written, short and accepted allocation of decisions settles more conflicts than any organisation chart. The firm drafts it with the executive and the management team, then keeps it alive during the first weeks, when everyone tests their limits.

Absorbing an imposed transformation. A new regulation, a market that tips, a major client changing its requirements. The company did not choose to change, and the temptation is to endure by reacting. The firm helps turn the constraint into a decision: what is done strictly because it must be, what the occasion is used to change, and what is refused.

How the firm leads an organisation decision

Framing writes what has to change and what does not change. The second list matters as much as the first: a reorganisation that does not say what it preserves worries everyone. "Reorganising the company" is not a decision; "giving production a single head, attaching logistics to production, and changing nothing in sales for six months" is one.

Establishing the facts describes the real organisation: who actually decides, who talks to whom, where decisions get stuck, which managers carry the company and which slow it down. This work is done through interviews and observation, and it almost always produces surprises, because the executive sees his organisation from the top, where it most resembles the diagram.

Building the options compares two or three target organisations, each with its sequence, its costs, what it makes irreversible and the people it exposes. The most elegant on paper is not always the most tenable, and the firm says so.

The decision sets the chosen organisation, the order of steps, the owner of each, the schedule of checkpoints, and how to announce. Then the firm stays: at least one review a week during implementation, until the new way of working is established, and a conversation at three months to check what holds and correct what slips.

The mistakes the firm sees most often

Announcing the chart before speaking to the people it affects. Every manager concerned must hear it from the executive, before the general announcement, with what it changes for him. The reverse produces resignations nobody had foreseen.

Changing everything at once. A reorganisation that touches structure, tools, processes and people in the same quarter lets no step take root. What is established is measured by what works without the executive attending to it.

Confusing organisation with people. Drawing the structure around the individuals present, rather than drawing the structure the company needs and then placing people in it, produces charts that age with the people.

Letting the pace go. The executive holds the first three weeks, then urgency reclaims its rights, and the transformation stops halfway without anyone having decided it. An outside counterpart who comes back every week with the same list of questions is the simplest way not to let go.

Forgetting middle management. Team leaders and department heads are the ones who will make the new organisation live or let it die. A transformation that gives them neither a role nor a voice turns them into observers, then into opponents.

Deliverable and duration

A target organisation, a sequence, the owner of each step and the schedule of checkpoints; then support during implementation. Four to twelve weeks depending on scope, at a fixed fee set in the written proposal. The first thirty-minute conversation is not charged.

What you can do right now

Take your organisation chart and, next to each box, write who actually decides in that area. Where the two names differ, you have found the place where the real organisation and the displayed one parted ways. Then write in one sentence what you want to change, and in another what you want to preserve. If the second is empty, the reorganisation is too broad; if the first is, it is not yet a decision. These two sentences are the starting point of a first conversation with the firm.