The Opportunity to Reset

The moment right after a re-org is an opportunity

The re-org is not over after the initial transition. Although the hardest part is behind you, the next few months will still require active attention in order to make the re-org a success. Top managers will use the re-org as an opportunity to reset the norms of their team, and capture the opportunity within the uncertainty that a re-org creates. During this period, the manager's goal is to guarantee that new team structure will harden into one that is suited for driving future impact. To achieve this, they will work alongside the team to mould and tune their ways of work.

An analogy - a newly re-orged team is like a new house. While the foundation and structure is solid, there is a period of natural settling that happens as the structure gets accustom to its usage and its expected load. While you are not making large changes during this settling period, you are actively identifying weaknesses in the structure, and proactively making preventative corrections so any small cracks or imbalances do not become bigger later on. Thus, this is the period where you are rapidly tuning the team so that it has the best chance of enduring the foreseeable future.

The two main areas for post re-org tuning are on the new processes that the team is forming and on actively improving the culture of the team.

Tuning Processes

As teams settle in their ways, they become more and more over-fitted to the inertia of the team. This means that over time, all teams become highly tuned to their ways of work through the established processes, systems and interactions. However if this way of work is no longer driving the team's goals, it is surprisingly hard to change.