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 Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels How many organizational restructurings have you been through? How many have actually improved how the organization worked? Too often in nonprofits and associations, restructuring and reorganizations happen for the wrong reasons. Reorganizing entire teams to solve one personnel problem I have witnessed organizations that regularly restructured rather than dealing directly with problematic staff. A staff person was either ‘reorganized’ out of a job or their supervisory responsibility was taken away. Decisions about these changes were all done at the top of the organization. It seemed as though there was little thought given to how these changes would impact the work of those involved. One day people had one boss and a set of colleagues, the next day a different boss and new colleagues Ripple effects The ripple effect of these changes lingers for weeks if not months. Energy is caught up in discussing the changes. Critiquing them, trying to discern the reasons behind them. For each new staff team they now have to adjust to a new boss, a new set of colleagues. They will have to spend time creating new team norms – whether explicitly or implicitly. Staffers have to learn the new boss’ expectations and communications style. More than just a ripple it is as if the water has been churned up in a pond or a river and you cannot see in front of you. While this churn is going on, actual work of the organization slows. The necessary gets done but any team that was in high gear and really performing before the reorganization is likely disrupted. Teams are knocked back to square one and have to rebuild. Down with Silos Another reason organizations restructure is to promote “collaboration” or to be more customer centered. “We are breaking down the silos,” says management. Break them up, the thinking goes, and then people will work across team boundaries more easily. This may work for a short while people get used to the new structure. Yet if other aspects of the organization’s culture do not support cross-team collaboration, it will not last long. Over time the boundaries around the newly formed staff groups will get reestablished and the silos will rebuild. Finding the “right” structure won’t do it The key to promoting collaboration is not what the organizational structure is. It does not matter whether staff is organized by functional area, or geography or customer segment. Rather what regular cross-cutting mechanisms exist? Are there regular cross-cutting projects, task forces, committees that bring people together? These could be ongoing or for a specific project. Regardless of the topic, they serve to bring people together in different groupings. In these, people will build relationships and share information.
Creating these cross-cutting groups – especially a series of short term projects that provide the opportunity for more people to be involved – will do much more than yet another reorganization for promoting organizational collaboration. Regular retreats can also help cultivate cross-cutting relationships. So consider restructuring with caution. Ask why you doing this and will it achieve what you are aiming for? Consider the ripple effects.  Too many people – especially women – suffer from perfectionism. While it used to be that this was the perfect “weakness” to admit in a job interview, perfectionism gets in the way of performance rather than enhancing it. Perfectionists live in fear of mistakes. Gripped in this fear, they struggle with committing to a course of action, to get started, or to finish a project. Try and make mistakes I was talking to someone who was in the throws of perfectionism. I joked – why not try and make mistakes? Set that as your goal. Make as many mistakes as possible today. I was joking but why not give it a try. You can’t learn without making mistakes so rather than avoid them why not try to have them? This seems very counterintuitive yet if you were to approach your day that way I am guessing you would jump into action – because how else would you up your mistake ante? Also I would guess that you are unlikely to make a lot of mistakes, but making that goal might make them seem a little less scary. What’s the “right” place to start? Another person was trying to figure out the “right” way to start doing more strategic work with her board. There were lots of reasons that the board was in an operational mode. Crises in the past had forced it to shift its focus to the day-to-day. With the crisis past it had not yet shifted gears. There were lots of possible ways to get started. But she was paralyzed with looking for the “right” one – the strategic one. Certainly there is value in being strategic for greater impact and efficiency. But searching for the perfect strategic action can also have the impact of not taking any action. My feedback to her – pick one and start as an experiment. See how it goes. It might not be the “right” one and if not, adjust and try something new. Planning and experimenting I love planning and love working with organizations to help them think through their future direction to help them be more strategic. At the same time, organizations trip themselves up when they fall into the trap of thinking that they can plan out everything in detail at the outset. You just do not know what of your plans will be a ‘mistake’ or a learning opportunity. The ‘mistake’ provides you the opportunity to shift gears and try something new. Try thinking of your plan as a series of experiments. This way you can hold the plan more lightly and be more open to learning. Identify a couple big goals to set your own or your organization’s direction. Plan in more detail for the first year of implementation, especially first actions. Then get started.
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September 2023
Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC, owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of the Mission: Impact podcast, as well as the Mission: Impact blog with all rights reserved, including right of publicity.
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