Previous post was about the Swing. This one is about the design itself.

Like bell-curves, ALL organization re-designs will have folks who think it is WRONG, across levels and they will be right. Because it prioritizes and optimizes for some over others. (On an aside, many in HR jumped to write obituaries of the bell curve. Nothing much changed!).

For example, in a product co., do you build a small engineering team within product management group (PMG). Or house all of engineering under one-roof. Do you have the PMG function separate or rolling up to engineering. These decisions will impact how the Go To Market team behaves. Are product features more imp or engineering architecture more important? Ultimately, the customer will have a different experience.

Similarly, in services (tech), and perhaps a more contentious scenario, do you house RMG inside Delivery or HR? Again, the decision would drive very different behaviours and outcomes.

Point is, whichever design-pivot you pick, it will meet promoters and detractors. But more importantly, drive outcomes and behaviours differently.

Looking back and connecting the dots, while evaluating design options, we would include:

1. New Structures: The usual suspects in pivots are customer; business; geo or leader personality. But, and maybe more fundamentally, we should see it as a “communication” and “decision-making” mesh. Farther the boxes in the chart, less connection!
2. Index on Communication: prioritize which team needs to communicate vertically with lowest friction to meet the operating goals for the year! Answer may be: ALL. But the hard part is to find the most important ones for the moment.
3. Index on Decision-making: prioritize which team has to be together and make the decisions (on-the-job folks and not high-managers!) with lowest friction to meet the operating goals for the year!
4. Don’t let the tail wag the dog. Who heads the new sub-structures are decided at the end. Not at the beginning.
5. Set expectations on frequency of change. Most folks feel that design changes are once a 5-year initiative. Note that in point 2 and 3, it is linked to the annual operating plan. So set that expectation. Review it in 12 months, if not in 6!

All organizations present numerous opportunities for us to look at how it communicates and makes decisions, externally and internally. We just have to find and analyse them thoughtfully. They are gold mines.