Decision-Driven Reorganization

The June 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review has a great article on decision-driven reorganization.  The piece emphasizes that reorganization should take place in an environment focused on the decisions an organization must make relative to their strategy rather than making structural changes based on a SWOT analysis.  The article then lays out six-steps for conducting a decision audit and using the results to drive your reorganization.

What I like about this approach is that it focuses on making changes based on your actual business strategy needs.  All too often we see companies that think the solution to all their problems is just to reorganize, as if their organizational structure is what’s driving the business.  These are the same companies who reorganize every few years without actually addressing the underlying business problems that are hindering performance.  My favorite feature of the six step process outlined by HBR is that it includes a decision point after step 2 that asks whether or not an organizational change is even needed!

I have never seen reorganizing alone solve an organizations core issues; addressing the business strategy and evaluating the organization in light of supporting this strategy yields much higher results than simply shuffling resources around and leads to organizational focus around core competencies rather than disruptive changes.

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