Reorgs

Show Notes

Summary

Sara Hicks and Mathias Meyer explore why organizational restructures (aka reorgs) are so often painful and ineffective, arguing that leaders frequently treat them as quick fixes without clearly defining the problem, the desired outcome, or the human cost. They discuss common triggers–from new leadership and changing strategy to growth, acquisitions, and team conflict—and emphasize that even small shifts can disrupt trust, relationships, careers, and day-to-day work. Their central takeaway is that successful change requires clear goals, realistic expectations, thoughtful communication, manager support, and a genuine focus on the people affected—not just moving names around on an org chart.

Keywords

reorgs, reorganizations, leadership, organizational change, team trust, communication, employee morale, human cost, change management, workplace culture, decision-making

Takeaways

• A reorg is never just structural. Even small reporting-line or team changes affect trust, identity, career progression, and how people work together.

• Leaders should be clear about the problem first. A new org chart is not a substitute for understanding why progress has slowed, where conflict is coming from, or what the business actually needs.

• Define success before making changes. Teams need to know what the reorg is meant to achieve and how leadership will recognize whether it worked.

• Account for the human cost. Reorgs create uncertainty, stress, lost momentum, and cynicism—especially when employees feel their work or relationships have been reset overnight.

• Communication needs to be early, specific, and carefully sequenced. Avoiding surprises, preparing managers to answer questions, and explaining the “why” can reduce rumor and confusion.

• Change takes longer than leaders expect. Newly formed teams need time to rebuild relationships, establish ways of working, and regain momentum; productivity will not simply reset by the next sprint.

• Reorgs should be a last-resort solution, not a reflex. Before reshuffling people, leaders should consider whether a less disruptive fix—clearer strategy, better decision-making, or direct conflict resolution—would address the real issue.

Chapters

00:00 Understanding Reorgs: The Emotional Landscape

01:50 Understanding Reorgs: The Basics

04:28 The Human Cost of Reorgs

06:24 When is a Reorg Necessary?

08:52 The Impact of Leadership Changes

11:19 Communication and Stress in Reorgs

13:44 Cultural Shifts and Acquisitions

16:02 Strategies for Successful Reorgs

22:27 Organizational Changes and Their Impact

24:36 Effective Communication During Reorgs

29:14 The Timing of Communication

32:01 Understanding the Human Cost of Reorgs

35:42 Evaluating the Success of Reorgs

Transcript

Sara Hicks (00:00) Howdy, welcome to the Intentional Organization Podcast. This episode is about reorgs. So I've been through a few reorgs in my career. Some that I have led and some that actually happened to me. And I'll be honest, none of them felt good while they were happening or while we were preparing for them. So reorgs are often pitched as kind of a clean reset, a fresh

Structure, it's a cost savings, it's a new way to unlock speed, efficiency, clarity. But what's rarely said out loud is how messy and emotional they are for everyone involved. there's anxiety, there's a loss of team identity, there's quiet questions like: Do I still even matter here? And the truth is a reorg isn't just a spreadsheet exercise.

It's not just names in boxes and lines to connect those boxes. It's about people. It's about relationships. It's about power. And most importantly, it's about trust. And while sometimes reorgs are absolutely necessary, perhaps because the company has grown or changed or stalled, too often reorgs are treated like a magic button. You push it and everything will suddenly look better.

But that's rarely how it plays out. So in this episode, Mathias and I dig into the underbelly of the reorg, why so many of them fail and fall short, why they hurt morale often more than they help, and how leaders can approach them with more honesty, care, and longer term thinking. So if you're navigating a reorg or you're about to lead one, this episode is for you.

Sara Hicks (01:56) Hey everyone, hey Mathias.

Mathias Meyer (01:58) Hey Sara!

Sara Hicks (02:00) Hello. So let's see, our topic today is reorgs. The dreaded reorg heavy sigh. Yeah,

Mathias Meyer (02:11) So much fun.

Sara Hicks (02:13) I mean, having been part of more reorgs than I can count, I can say they are probably one of the least pleasant experiences in business. And as I was preparing for today's chat,

I learned, Mathias, that something like 70 to 80 % of reorgs fail. 70 to 80 %!

Mathias Meyer (02:34) It doesn't surprise me at all.

I think what surprises me the most about that very exact metric is that I mean, this will be the fun part of our conversation. How do you know whether a reorg was successful? then on the flip side, how do you know it failed?

Sara Hicks (02:57) Right.

Mathias Meyer (02:59) That's what I found most staggering about that data, not the data

Sara Hicks (03:04) It's kind of like if

a tree falls in a forest, does anyone hear it? we're

Mathias Meyer (03:08) Okay.

Sara Hicks (03:09) going to dive into this topic. As you can probably tell, we're probably going to have a little bit of skepticism, probably a little snark, a little cynicism. Or maybe a lot.

Mathias Meyer (03:18) Or maybe a lot of all of that, who knows?

Sara Hicks (03:21) All of the above. But why don't we start, Mathias, with, let's go high level. Like what?

What constitutes a reorg? What makes a reorg?

Mathias Meyer (03:34) I mean, that's a good question. Like I've been, I've been thinking about this topic a lot, especially like in the context of coaching conversations, I myself have not been, involved in like on the receiving end of a reorg. I've done a few of those.

Sara Hicks (03:48) Lucky you.

Mathias Meyer (03:49) Yeah. I'm grateful for that. I mostly experienced those through friends who work at larger companies where.

reorgs seem to be the bread and butter of some executives, but I'm already jumping a little bit too far ahead. When is a reorg happening? I mean, for me, maybe the most relevant experience I have in this is when I started at Reaction as CTO. I remember the first board meeting and I was asked, like, so any changes you're to make? Like, no, no, I'm just, just want to see how everything's working.

And I can't really confidently say any of that after just 90 days. I have some idea of what's going on after 90 days, but not enough. And I think, yeah, There seems to be like a general expectation

Sara Hicks (04:41) You

Mathias Meyer (04:43) that especially as a senior leader or an executive comes in, that they are going to make changes.

you know, people are let go, new people are brought in, structures are reshuffled because the assumption is that whoever had the position before,

You know, set it up the wrong way, whatever that means, or it's not the right way anymore for where the company needs to go. Or it just just wasn't working. There's, you know, potentially new managers or lieutenants being brought in. Like if I were to start as a CTO, I could bring in, My former chief architect or my former VP engineering

So I already know I have reliable people in there and those folks are going to make their own changes. That's the first thing that comes to mind for me. And it's probably the most painful one because like there's such a, that's such a stigma almost like there's such a weird

Sara Hicks (05:40) Yeah

Mathias Meyer (05:40) expectation that this is happening. And this is probably where we get to the win where it's like, it seems like an establishing of authority, right? I'm making, I'm making

Sara Hicks (05:49) Hmm. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (05:51) my early mark.

based on the assumption that I know what the right way is. And even though I've only been here for two weeks, I know that my way is the correct way. I already

Sara Hicks (06:03) All

Mathias Meyer (06:04) understand after only two weeks what this organization needs, which to me is very preposterous. But that's to me the first thing that comes to mind, which is also where folks get cynical. It's like, you've got a new CTO?

Reorg? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sara Hicks (06:23) You

I mean, I I In my mind I was thinking okay, what when is a real of appropriate? You know like you

Mathias Meyer (06:32) Mm-hmm.

Sara Hicks (06:33) know reorgs if there is a let's say a shift in a strategy Sometimes that might require

changing kind of the structure of the team and the focus of the team and kind of the leadership and the management you know I think sometimes that can that would make sense or let's say the business

Mathias Meyer (06:51) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (06:52) is growing the team is growing naturally you probably need to start to structure and organize the team differently and

Mathias Meyer (07:01) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (07:02) what you're pointing out

seen it so many times. New leadership comes in and you know they have this mandate let's reorganize the team without really thinking about the human costs of that and and that

Mathias Meyer (07:17) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (07:17) in fact most likely 70 to 80 percent is it's not going to be effective. In fact it's gonna

Mathias Meyer (07:24) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (07:25) it's gonna cause a lot of harm.

near term and maybe even mid to long term. So yeah, think like, when is it a reorg? You said when team structures change significantly. Yeah, that's a reorg. even if a manager is moving over to another pod or

Mathias Meyer (07:50) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (07:50) You know,

and a new manager is coming in, but the core team and you know, the leadership thinks, the core team staying the same. Like, no, the core team's not staying the same. Like leadership,

Mathias Meyer (08:00) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (08:01) like the team DNA, the whole construct of the team is shifting even with one person coming in or coming out, right?

Mathias Meyer (08:09) Mm-mm.

you could get very philosophical about like, what is truly a reorg? Is even a reorg when you add a new hire to the team, right? In some way, what you have at the end is a new team and not the team that was before. And it's a new team that somehow needs to regain, you know, trust in with this new member of the team regain or vice versa.

Right, that to you, that new member needs to understand how does this team take, how do they work, especially when like you're new hire, there's even more around the entire organization that you need to learn. It's a fascinating one to me. I'm not sure I have a perfect

answer to that question.

Sara Hicks (08:53) Yeah. Yeah, I don't know

if I do either, you know, like reorg. Maybe there's different levels of reorg, you know, but, any change to a team, you know, a senior leader coming in, a junior more individual contributor moved a team

Mathias Meyer (09:10) Mmm.

Sara Hicks (09:11) split into two.

And the

Mathias Meyer (09:13) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (09:13) team is being reorganized around that shift. Now, what we're referring to though is probably maybe the bigger reorgs where multiple moves are happening, teams are being shifted to different areas of focus or people are being moved to different

managers and maybe different pods. But I think the point is if the change is small or big, it's still going to impact the organization and still requires

Mathias Meyer (09:42) That is true. I kind of, I kind of.

Sara Hicks (09:45) preparation.

Mathias Meyer (09:47) Yeah, and communication. I like your measurement of human cost. And think that's, you know, in part a subjective thing and one where you can't put an exact number on know, when I talk to my clients about reorgs, when I think about them and when we talk about things like what we'll get into later, when should you communicate those? How should you communicate those? What care and preparation should you put into them?

what we talk about is like, what is the stress levels this will create? Right? How is this going to stress the team in terms of they need to, they start worrying about their job. They need to start worrying about taking on more responsibility when they already feel stretched thin. they have a new boss that they don't know that they need to, you know, start getting acquainted with.

Or changes in strategy that imply that whatever you've done so far has become effectively meaningless. Or meaningless maybe to some extreme. it's It's somebody else's responsibility, or it's just, it's of no use anymore. Strategy changes are one example there.

I like the dimension of just thinking about how much stress is this going to cost and to how many people. If I bring in a new person to one team, yes, there's readjustment that needs to happen, but it's usually mostly confined to that team and maybe some folks who are adjacent depending

on the role.

Sara Hicks (11:19) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (11:20) But I like that angle thinking about it also then about everything that follows on or even the pretext of a reorg, like what happens

Sara Hicks (11:28) Right. Right.

Mathias Meyer (11:30) leading up to it, basing that on how many people is this going to impact?

and how much stress is this gonna create? And maybe over time, as you go from reorg to reorg,

Sara Hicks (11:38) Right. Like that.

Mathias Meyer (11:42) how much is this gonna increase levels of cynicism in my team, which it will inevitably

Sara Hicks (11:46) Right,

Mathias Meyer (11:47) do?

Sara Hicks (11:48) right, right. I think there's this fallacy that.

you're going to make these changes and presto, you're going to have this high performing functional group of people, functional team that's performing against this new strategy. It's like, it's all just going to happen overnight. And we talk about this in our book, there's a framework or a principle, if you will, it's

Forming, storming, norming, performing. Let's start,

Mathias Meyer (12:19) Yeah, yeah.

Sara Hicks (12:20) yeah. Forming, you know, like you kind of got to go through these sequences. The team has to form, you know, and

before they can actually like get into performing, they have to kind of go through these steps of establishing relationships and establishing boundaries and establishing,

how they're going to collaborate and ways of working together. And that has to start over when you reorg.

Mathias Meyer (12:43) Yeah, it might have to start over for many teams across maybe even different departments.

Sara Hicks (12:51) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (12:52) Yeah,

I think the other thing I think about when I think about reorgs is when job descriptions change significantly. Even when I think maybe you could lump that in things that we talked about, like refocusing a team, teams getting a new lead or people moving to other parts of the organization. Sometimes change in jobs and job descriptions, job titles or responsibilities might be implied, but not always.

the struggle is sometimes to just really understand what is a reorg to people. When is it one? When is it one to me, as say the executives? And when I, when I as an executive deem something not to be a reorg, will it still be perceived as a reorg by the team? I just, and I think in a way job descriptions, there needs to be a reason, whether that reason is like we do have a new strategy and

based on that, some functions need to change and responsibilities change. Or even worse, we swap out an entire group of people and bring in new people in their stead, And mean, of course, the worst one of them that does sometimes happen is like...

when an organization is dissolved entirely.

Even there, people might move to different parts of the org. They might be let go, there a gaping hole in the organization suddenly that again creates stress levels. It makes people talk, gossip, rumor, be cynical, especially when they don't understand why this is happening or why there was no alternative.

Sara Hicks (14:25) Yep. The gossip mill is strong. you're dissolving a team or a business unit or a function, people are talking.

I won't say names, but a company I was with, there was

someone who said that her main job was moving people's names around on a spreadsheet every quarter meaning This is like a thousand plus person company where people were being

you reorg Reorg planning

and it just had such a high cost. was just this like

Mathias Meyer (15:01) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (15:02) expectation. People were just walking on eggshells, like what's gonna happen? And it was happening regularly, example that you brought up is like, know, companies get acquired, know, Reaction Commerce got acquired.

Mathias Meyer (15:12) Mm-hmm.

Sara Hicks (15:13) Of course, that's a massive shift for the team and management

Mathias Meyer (15:18) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (15:19) changes and org changes. And then we got acquired again and...

Mathias Meyer (15:23) And pretty much everything changes.

And there's a fallout from an acquisition then that happens that is about combining

Sara Hicks (15:26) everything. Right?

Mathias Meyer (15:30) efforts and finding efficiencies, whatever that means, or even eliminating product lines, which is just yes, acquisitions

Sara Hicks (15:36) Right, right.

Mathias Meyer (15:38) have reorgs, all written all over them. pretty much cover all of

Sara Hicks (15:42) I don't know the stat.

should have looked this one up there. Yeah, most acquisitions aren't successful. I think partly

Mathias Meyer (15:47) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (15:48) because of this, right? Because you're merging two company cultures together. There's massive shifts in people's job responsibilities and

team structures, every team structure is changing.

there's a reason why there's a whole industry around mergers and acquisition, because it's so challenging.

Mathias Meyer (16:09) Yeah, interesting part is like culture is usually what is, you know, maybe at the bottom of the spreadsheet, but it's also something where you sometimes you don't know until you know, right? And then it's, and it's too late, unfortunately.

Sara Hicks (16:23) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (16:24) in my speed coaching sessions, like the post acquisition, the fallout is what

has been a frequent topic. People are not certain and they have no support or help in navigating, even finding ways to eliminate somebody else's work and getting them on board with that idea, right? Which is not, that's not a fun thing to consider. Like we're gonna stop working on your thing. We're gonna be working on our thing, which is objectively better. Like just, I'm jesting, but.

That's sometimes the spirit that these people have. It's like, well, you need to think about what are people, what people are losing, right? And this that's going to be the most impactful to them. And I mean, I think about all of the recent tech layoffs that are just, they're just keep going where the feeling of loss is like you show up in the morning and suddenly there's hundreds of people not there anymore that were there the day before.

And you're just like, so A, why am I still here? I don't understand. And B, will I not be able to log back in?

Sara Hicks (17:35) Yes. that's

a reorgan of itself, right? Everything's being reorganized. People are being laid off. But Mathias,

Mathias Meyer (17:40) Yeah, yeah, I'm wondering.

Sara Hicks (17:43) AI is gonna be able to do those jobs. I had to say it.

Mathias Meyer (17:46) This is true. They're gonna replace all

of the work and we're not hiring any new people for jobs that can be done using AI. I mean, that part I feel very cynical about.

Sara Hicks (18:00) Yeah, that's a whole nother podcast, right?

Mathias Meyer (18:03) So that's all. I was talking about this

at a different recording earlier today and it is gnarly to think about. I mean, who knows where all this is gonna go. It just seems like a very strange hype cycle. But anyway.

Sara Hicks (18:15) Yeah. maybe

we should shift into how can reorgs be done better? Like, you know, it comes down to communication. but let's talk a little bit about what, could be done differently to maybe improve the odds that a reorg could be successful.

Mathias Meyer (18:34) one more step back and talking about like what people think they're trying to achieve with reorgs.

I've had several conversations about this with leaders and one that I come across quite regularly that especially happens where the team reaches a certain threshold in size or something isn't working anymore. Like the product development field slow. That's one that's come up for me.

And so we're changing the entire team structure. We're Yeah, we're exactly.

Sara Hicks (19:01) We're not moving fast enough. We have to make a change.

Mathias Meyer (19:06) do you really understand why you're not moving fast enough?

what was actually happening before? And then is there an alternative, maybe an easier way or one that isn't as stressful and doesn't have a big human cost that we could take instead? Like a reorg is seemingly the easiest one. And sometimes that comes with the shift in strategy where that can make sense. think we've thought about adjusting team structures as we shifted our strategy.

I think that's okay. It just becomes a weird

Sara Hicks (19:38) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (19:38) thing when strategy changes every six months. And so does then, you know, reorgs

Sara Hicks (19:41) Yes. That's the problem.

Mathias Meyer (19:45) happen.

Sara Hicks (19:46) Yeah, so what, yeah, what are, what are the things that the reorgs trying to achieve? So obviously we talked about shift in strategy, you know, new leadership or, yeah, so

Mathias Meyer (19:54) A new senior leader coming in.

Sara Hicks (19:57) the team's growing. There's, you know, people being hired, new managers, new leaders, or even new ICs.

Mathias Meyer (20:06) True, sometimes you need to put in a new management layer and that could be a rework. But

Sara Hicks (20:12) Yep. Yep.

Mathias Meyer (20:14) I mean, there's an obvious reason for that one. mean, and it probably has a higher chance of successes than most of the other ones.

Sara Hicks (20:22) Right.

There's also, resolving an issue with a team. So we've talked a little bit about, you know, maybe there's a conflict within a team

whether it's a personal or, you know, a difference of opinion or a different

Mathias Meyer (20:37) Mmm.

Sara Hicks (20:38) approaching things and can't work together. And that might require, you know, moving some folks around.

It's not always a guarantee. you know, this issue that's coming up. Let's move it over here. And

Mathias Meyer (20:52) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (20:53) then the issue just moves over there, right?

Mathias Meyer (20:56) Yeah, it feels like the ultimate like authority parachute in to save the day is like you too can't sort this out. I know what we're going to do. We're going to move you

Sara Hicks (21:06) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (21:07) apart or we're going to move you to on the same level so that neither of you can

Sara Hicks (21:13) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (21:13) pull some sort of authority card.

Ah, shifting a hierarchy shouldn't ideally be how you solve interpersonal issues. It seems so simplistic.

Sara Hicks (21:24) Definitely not.

Mathias Meyer (21:28) I mean, how do we know this is gonna work? Is there less bickering?

I don't know, feels like a pretext sometimes to letting somebody go, which might in some ways be the healthier thing to do, even though

Sara Hicks (21:41) Right.

Mathias Meyer (21:41) I don't say that lightly. interpersonal conflicts are when decision making issues are there when people are pulling hierarchy and rank cards or They can't actually decide.

what are we going to do? What is important? What are we going to work on? So you shift

Sara Hicks (21:59) Right.

Mathias Meyer (22:00) the hierarchy again, so that either you make the decision as their boss or somebody else does. Instead of maybe thinking about the decision making process, or as you say, well, the context, the strategy that influences that, that is somehow leading to these folks coming to these very divergent decisions.

I think we might be uncovering a pattern here.

Sara Hicks (22:27) There

seems to be some patterns, yeah. You know, I've seen where whole teams get moved under different.

executive leadership areas. So an example, I saw an entire product analytics org moved from the product org over to the CFOs org, because it's all about business metrics and KPIs And that's a massive shift. It changes not even on the team structure.

Mathias Meyer (23:00) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (23:01) Staying intact, kind of. Obviously the leader of product analytics is getting a new manager, a new boss, new reporting line. But what's changing is for every single team who interacts with product analytics, they now have a

It's a different way of working. And that's

Mathias Meyer (23:21) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (23:22) just one example, you know, where you're merging or you're kind of recombining teams, you know, you're shifting them

Mathias Meyer (23:28) Mm-mm.

Sara Hicks (23:28) over parts of the org. I've seen product design also move from a design org over to a product org over to a marketing org. It happens so regularly. And I think I just keep going back to we neglect to really think about the human cost. And I like, Mathias, what you said about

maybe there's maybe that's what we need to really track. You know how many

Mathias Meyer (23:52) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (23:52) humans are going to be impacted by this change? Both the immediate change, the immediate team, and then the surrounding teams, right?

Mathias Meyer (24:01) Yeah. And I think with like moving an entire work to somebody else, you're just, you know, in the hierarchically in a structure speaking, like nothing changes. Job descriptions might not even change, but expectations might, right? Or the leadership

Sara Hicks (24:16) Right.

Mathias Meyer (24:16) style, like how, or how these expectations are set and communicated that might change entirely. Right. expectations might change. The strategy might change. The approach might change.

how involved the new boss is in day-to-day work. That's stressful to think about. I

Sara Hicks (24:33) Yeah.

you now want to shift into sort of how we can improve when we communicate and how we communicate a reorg?

Mathias Meyer (24:46) Let's go. Let's do it.

Sara Hicks (24:48) Yeah, I mean, think the win is a little challenging for larger orgs.

My high level answer to that is, you know, I think it's really important to get ahead of the rumor mill and

Mathias Meyer (24:59) Yeah, exactly.

Sara Hicks (25:00) to really plan out and map out a communication timeline and a communication strategy and to communicate as early as possible. my caveat there is I do know that there are sometimes

you know, some, some confidential things, some things that, you know, you can't necessarily share, you know,

Mathias Meyer (25:21) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (25:22) early, you know, if, if people are being laid off or if, you know, like there's things that just can't be announced. so obviously like I get the delicate nature and the timing, but, the main point is even with that, the putting together, the,

sequence of communication, the different

Mathias Meyer (25:43) Hmm

Sara Hicks (25:44) types of communication that's going to individuals versus groups versus managers, and then the cascade of that. How is that rolling out

Mathias Meyer (25:52) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (25:53) to the broader org? And that doesn't happen overnight. a lot of attention and care and detail.

Who's gonna be met with individually? Who's meeting with team?

Mathias Meyer (26:07) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (26:08) like I said, at what sequence? Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (26:11) Go.

This

plays a little bit into our previous conversation around difficult conversations. It's just staying ahead of the rumor mill and planning out the communication ahead of time and also the level of detail to ensure that you stay ahead of the rumor mill and that you also, as much as possible, address the questions and concerns that people are going to have and maybe also get ahead of any

a cynicism that my or sarcasm that might be building up, which is, know, when that reaches a certain threshold, that's not good. And then people just look at a reorganize just like with an eye roll, which many of them do anyway, already, because it's such a

Sara Hicks (26:59) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (27:00) frequent thing that happens and for no apparent good reason at all.

Sara Hicks (27:05) Yeah, I think some of the worst experiences I've seen is when managers or leaders aren't also bought in to the reorg. And so, you know, a big change is announced from the top. And here's this new vision, this new strategy, and here's these new teams and

Mathias Meyer (27:24) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (27:24) And

the management layer, the folks doing the work, leadership are also rolling their eyes. They're also

Mathias Meyer (27:34) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (27:34) not clear on what the changes are, why the changes are being made, who's going to be impacted.

They haven't been brought along, they haven't been brought into the fold, they haven't been given the vision, they haven't been given talking points, if you will, to

Mathias Meyer (27:51) Yeah?

Sara Hicks (27:51) help their teams. And so they're just sort of stuck there trying to understand what's happening themselves when in fact they could be really helpful to the change.

Mathias Meyer (28:03) Yeah, but I mean, for that, you need to be able to explain it to them, like in a way that,

Sara Hicks (28:08) you

Mathias Meyer (28:09) you know, at least where people can understand context and the reasoning behind it, which, you know, is usually mostly missing, I would say. uh,

Sara Hicks (28:19) That's right.

Mathias Meyer (28:20) they're the ones who need to explain this to their teams. And they're also going to be the first ones

to field any questions from their teams that they, you know, unless well equipped are not going to have any answers to. I mean, some of that is the crux of middle management where you're just stuck between decisions that you have very little influence or authority over. And, you know, that you might not agree with, but that at least you'd want be able to explain to your team in a way that

Seems sensible, seems to make sense, or at least, you know, when somebody asks, you can explain to them it happened. Whether it makes sense to them or to you, maybe is then a secondary concern, but at least, well, here's the reason. And not just, well, here's a reorg. Like just, happy Monday. It's a reorg. You know what to do.

The when is a difficult thing. I think I pondered mostly the question when, even leading up to this. And as I talked to clients of like, for example, like what do you bring in for the first time, a VP engineering? Like you're a CTO, maybe you're the founder and you're looking to hire a VP engineering,

and maybe the process is so long that in the meanwhile there's a market shift or it's shift in financing or something that in the end you can't hire hire that person anymore. I've experienced that clients of mine have experienced that but there also came the question of when do you communicate this like this specific thing?

right, bringing in a new leader or maybe even thinking about a management layer. that to me is something where like this, there's no reason to me to keep that a secret. Like if I'm looking for a VP engineering that, you know, there's a high likelihood that the new person is going to join the team. Usually, especially when I work with a coach, the reasoning for that is going to be well defined.

but it's unclear when it's going to happen, I would communicate anyway.

again, if there's nothing confidential that needs to be kept in mind, not regulations, whatever, right?

Sara Hicks (30:27) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (30:28) or where it's really something that like affects maybe an individual, like a single person that is, that might be singled out in this, right?

Sara Hicks (30:34) Yeah, you want anyone singled

out for sure. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (30:38) but when you're hiring a VP engineering and this is, yes, this is going to bring a structural change in a new boss to somebody. But then I would like for that to be the least surprise possible.

Sara Hicks (30:50) avoiding surprises should be a key metric, right?

Mathias Meyer (30:53) Yeah, that is true.

Sara Hicks (30:55) bringing in a new VP an executive leader These roles are you know being recruited for I get

Mathias Meyer (31:03) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (31:03) there there may be times where you are

recruiting and you don't want your team to know. I think that's very, very rare. But you have a transparent process. Ideally, you know, the team knows and if anyone on the team wants to their hat in the ring, they should have a path to do that. But yes,

Mathias Meyer (31:21) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (31:22) you want to communicate that this role is being recruited for, we're actively looking for it and here's the why.

Here's the vision of what the team would look like when this person comes in and how that's going to

Mathias Meyer (31:34) Mmm.

Sara Hicks (31:34) shift the team. And having FAQs around that and having a plan around that, as you're trying to recruit for that individual, Why wouldn't you?

set the team up for success so they know that this role is going to be added to the team and also it's

going to impact the existing team and also really understanding, okay, what that impact is going to look like over the first 30 days, 60 days, 90

Mathias Meyer (31:59) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (32:00) days that that person joins

I think like that's the key is the, when we talked about it,

you know, in our other podcast around difficult conversations is the preparation, avoiding surprises, know, getting ahead of the communication plan and what's going to be communicated individually versus, at the team level

Mathias Meyer (32:17) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (32:18) or the company level, what types of communication is it, is it synchronous, Is it on a zoom? it, you know, what messages are going out?

in email versus Slack versus, you know, like there's so many details that need to be covered and giving

Mathias Meyer (32:32) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (32:33) managers and leaders FAQs for, I

Mathias Meyer (32:37) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (32:38) hate to go back to complain, but I will. I'll go back to cynicism mode, which is, I remember one reorg where we were in the middle of a sprint and

the folks making these changes, the strategy team, were like, we're gonna make these changes in this sprint. And then the next sprint, everyone will be focused on these new teams and in their new thing. And I was like, wow, both of these sprints.

and future sprints are all going to be impacted. This next sprint,

Mathias Meyer (33:09) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (33:10) you can expect 10 % of the work to be completed. There's not going everything all of a sudden. People are just contributing code, doing their product work in their new seats the very next

Mathias Meyer (33:22) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (33:22) sprint. It's like these delusions

leadership and of these changes.

Mathias Meyer (33:29) I like that. And that they're gonna happen fast. think maybe this

Sara Hicks (33:32) Right.

Mathias Meyer (33:33) brings us into like why so many of them fail. It's because there's some imagination, especially if you're far enough away from where it lands, where it impacts, where it's just like, yeah. You just, we're gonna

Sara Hicks (33:44) Mathias, they're just going to be productive at the same way, the very next sprint. Yes, yes, yeah.

Mathias Meyer (33:50) finish this sprint and next sprint, everything's gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be better. I like, you have your, you have your,

Sara Hicks (33:55) Yeah. I mean, I think, look, these are hard things.

I've been on the receiving end. I've also been a leader who's had to make changes implement reorgs. I think it comes down to that humanness. It's like, okay, communicating, really sharing in very plain terms, what is the reason?

how will the org operate once this change is made? And what are employees going to experience because of this transition?

Mathias Meyer (34:20) Yeah, and how do we know it's successful? Yeah.

Sara Hicks (34:25) You I had an employee come to me, she had been reporting to a manager for years and super concerned because like that manager obviously knew about where she was in her career path and her career progression and she felt like she was this close to getting.

promoted and had worked really, really

Mathias Meyer (34:42) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (34:43) hard. And then all of sudden you're going to another manager who doesn't have that context. You have to reestablish

Mathias Meyer (34:47) Yep.

Sara Hicks (34:47) that. it's like, that's such an important detail to think about. here's

Mathias Meyer (34:52) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (34:53) someone who's like this close, they believe And then they have to, they feel like this is a restart.

because now they have to prove themselves to a new manager.

Mathias Meyer (35:01) Yeah, they basically feel like they need. Yeah, agreed.

I think the one thing I think about when I think about reorgs and also how you described it in terms of thinking about

What is the operation mode after this is happening and what is the benefit to

Sara Hicks (35:19) Yeah. What will

be the, what would the benefits, what are the tangible results? Right.

Mathias Meyer (35:23) Yeah, what

and how will we know this is working and this is successful or even maybe, taking one step back. It's like, what is the goal of this reorg? What are we trying to achieve other than, you know, in?

Sara Hicks (35:36) Right. Yeah. And how will we know when we've achieved it?

Mathias Meyer (35:42) I don't know. This is, I mean, it is work. And it's also sometimes easier not having to explain this to people. But also this is why reorgs feel more like superstitions, magical thinking or delusions, as you said, than anything else. Because like there's an imaginary thing that is aimed for.

but that can't be put into

Sara Hicks (36:06) Great.

Mathias Meyer (36:06) words, numbers or anything else. And there's like, why are we doing this? Like just because it seems like the right solution. Right? Like I have

Sara Hicks (36:10) Yeah. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (36:15) a quote here from a fun book Gary Klein's sources of power where he talks about decision-making and decision-making on an expert level and a team level, individual level. And he has a specific thing only about reorgs.

And he says, quote, corporations adopt fads to build morale or increase motivation without any evidence that these will work. They reorganize to improve efficiency without any definitive evidence that the new structure will be any better. End quote. I love that quote so much. Like that's

Sara Hicks (36:52) Yes.

Mathias Meyer (36:53) everything I think about when I think about reorgs these days.

Sara Hicks (36:55) we'll put that in the show notes. We'll put the link to the book. And that's such a great

Mathias Meyer (36:58) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (36:59) quote, Maybe, Mathias, this is something we could work on a blog post or something around, know, questions to ask yourself

implementing every org and.

Mathias Meyer (37:09) Yeah,

Sara Hicks (37:10) Just some

Mathias Meyer (37:10) for sure.

Sara Hicks (37:11) frameworks we can help to put in place for folks. how to really outline the goal, how to understand if reorg is effective. just feels like there's not a lot out there on this topic. There's a lot out there on the topic of reorgs. yeah, considering how

Mathias Meyer (37:29) I mean, there's, you know, this...

Sara Hicks (37:31) common they are and how f-

Mathias Meyer (37:32) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (37:35) how common they come up in coaching sessions as being just disasters. Feels like there's room for us to just collectively as leaders and as managers to really pause and come up with different frameworks for this.

Mathias Meyer (37:48) Hmm.

Yeah. And think about the human angle and the human cost I mean, in some way, like we have a point to hear about, reorgs really work? I think we already established that 70 to 80 % don't. And in some way we've already covered all of the patterns

Sara Hicks (38:02) They don't. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (38:06) that lead to them not succeeding, right? Like we, we talked about like this, there's no, there's no visible reasoning.

behind the change. There's no

Sara Hicks (38:16) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (38:18) goal that set of what this is supposed to achieve. There's no vision of what is coming after. There's low, respect for the human cost of this happening. It puts middle management in a bind. Poor communication around it, like this maybe not at the wrong time or not sufficient context or just in

The corporate speak that is all the rage when a company reaches a certain size where you just can't really divulge anything. So you package it in management speak.

Where do we land this? mean,

Sara Hicks (38:52) Yeah.

I know we have to wrap this up, but I

Mathias Meyer (38:57) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (38:57) don't know if there's an easy, way to land the conversation outside of the reality that reorgs are incredibly challenging. They require,

Mathias Meyer (39:07) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (39:09) as a leader and as a manager, it's...

our responsibility to make sure we're clear on goals, clear on communication. This just doesn't happen with

Mathias Meyer (39:19) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (39:20) enough rigor for reorgs. And so maybe the message here, right?

Mathias Meyer (39:25) Yeah, and think

about how many this will impact and adjust your care and preparation and communication accordingly, based on

Sara Hicks (39:28) Yeah, come back to the human cost. In fact,

even the word reorg is not human.

Mathias Meyer (39:38) it's easier to give it a non-human name than, you know, it makes it easier to think about a few of those angles, I presume.

Sara Hicks (39:41) Right? We're not moving

people, we're moving resources, Mathias.

Mathias Meyer (39:47) Yeah, we're moving resources. This is true. This is what people are. This was cynical, by the way, for anybody listening. OK.

This is a deep topic.

Sara Hicks (39:58) Deep topic, yep.