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.
How well do reorganizations go in your organization?
- They’re great — smooth with no issues: 5%
- They’re OK — we get through them with one or two issues: 42%
- They’re bad — we really struggle with them: 33%
- They’re horrible — our reorgs are typically a disaster: 21%
Change is Painful. 55% of you say your reorgs go much worse than planned. People dislike change. That’s a given. One of the biggest reasons reorgs fail is because we don’t think about the human component of them. We move a box on an org chart, change some responsibilities, and keep on truckin’. Unfortunately if you don’t account for the personalities, aspirations, and skills of your people, you could be precipitating a mass exodus from the organization. Spend some time thinking through the implications of the changes you’re making. It could make all the difference in the world.
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.”