Organizational Restructuring for Dummies
September 20, 2013 3:30 PM
I work at a small non-profit academic organization (30 staff). We're currently in a period of "organizational restructuring," spurred by the (coincidentally timed) resignation of several of our key leaders, and I've been asked to be part of the team that helps decide what this new structure should look like. Help.
I've never done this before, and I need all the help I can get, ideally in the form of resources that describe what good leadership looks like, how to cultivate it, various organizational models for small organizations, approaches to workplace culture and well-being, and how best to support and communicate with employees and coworkers during this kind of major change. I've been asked specifically to help select methods for soliciting feedback from employees throughout this process, so any resources that point towards the value of surveys vs. focus groups vs. individual interviews vs. other methods (or how to combine all of the above) would be helpful.
We've been encouraged to think outside the box and to be vocal about our questions and concerns. Overall, the process is intended to be transparent and participatory (values our organization actually takes seriously). The team has the support of both the leaders who are departing and those who remain.
I've never done this before, and I need all the help I can get, ideally in the form of resources that describe what good leadership looks like, how to cultivate it, various organizational models for small organizations, approaches to workplace culture and well-being, and how best to support and communicate with employees and coworkers during this kind of major change. I've been asked specifically to help select methods for soliciting feedback from employees throughout this process, so any resources that point towards the value of surveys vs. focus groups vs. individual interviews vs. other methods (or how to combine all of the above) would be helpful.
We've been encouraged to think outside the box and to be vocal about our questions and concerns. Overall, the process is intended to be transparent and participatory (values our organization actually takes seriously). The team has the support of both the leaders who are departing and those who remain.
Do it if you care about the issue enough to carry on the work. What you are looking for are those who will write the grants and or contracts your organization needs to survive. I can relate to the daunting quality of the situation. It's not the right time to keep your head down.
The important thing to keep at the front of your head is that although these people are key, they cannot ever be in charge again. Who will run your organization is a key decision that must be decided by the group as a whole. I wish there were an easy way to do this, but there is not.
I wish I could suggest a book for you, but really your best plan is to meet with all the people who left and find out why & what will bring them back. You may find the reason they left is a true lack of funding, rather than rejected grant applications, you should bring whatever you learn back to the group.
posted by parmanparman at 4:32 PM on September 20, 2013
The important thing to keep at the front of your head is that although these people are key, they cannot ever be in charge again. Who will run your organization is a key decision that must be decided by the group as a whole. I wish there were an easy way to do this, but there is not.
I wish I could suggest a book for you, but really your best plan is to meet with all the people who left and find out why & what will bring them back. You may find the reason they left is a true lack of funding, rather than rejected grant applications, you should bring whatever you learn back to the group.
posted by parmanparman at 4:32 PM on September 20, 2013
From the sounds of it this sounds like a pretty complex situation
Perhaps you could tell us more scope of the change in the divisions / organisation as a whole and about your expected role in this and where you are in the organisation currently we might be able to offer more useful suggestions?
From my own experience these sort of organisational changes have quickly turned the delecate eco systems of otherwise reasonable jobs into into the stuff of organisational, political and personal nightmares.
Sorry to be negative but from the sounds of this; but from this rather cynical perspective once reorganization is mooted; the die has already been cast and the wheels set in motion no matter how much you might try to "engage" or feedback with stake holders you'll likely be pushing against the combined weight of human nature and organisational politics together.
However while it may be difficult it may not be entirely pointless, in giving people the option to talk about the issues raised and present them in good faith you will do important work and give good service to your colleagues, but understanding the likely Pyrrhic victory of any outcome will at least keep you sane in the interim!
Best of luck!
posted by Middlemarch at 5:26 PM on September 20, 2013
Perhaps you could tell us more scope of the change in the divisions / organisation as a whole and about your expected role in this and where you are in the organisation currently we might be able to offer more useful suggestions?
From my own experience these sort of organisational changes have quickly turned the delecate eco systems of otherwise reasonable jobs into into the stuff of organisational, political and personal nightmares.
Sorry to be negative but from the sounds of this; but from this rather cynical perspective once reorganization is mooted; the die has already been cast and the wheels set in motion no matter how much you might try to "engage" or feedback with stake holders you'll likely be pushing against the combined weight of human nature and organisational politics together.
However while it may be difficult it may not be entirely pointless, in giving people the option to talk about the issues raised and present them in good faith you will do important work and give good service to your colleagues, but understanding the likely Pyrrhic victory of any outcome will at least keep you sane in the interim!
Best of luck!
posted by Middlemarch at 5:26 PM on September 20, 2013
The field you need to look at some resources on is called organizational design.
The classic, and very useful, exercise is to start from outcomes, and work back to understand what functions you need in place to create those outcomes. Then you will look for synergies between those functions - for instance, there may be several functions (grantwriting, PR, marketing, social media) that use the same set of skills and could possibly be filled by a single individual or a team.
So, let's say the job is to run an ice cream shop. What outcomes are you aiming to create? Your goal is for people to enjoy an ice cream treat of their choice. That is what your organization exists to do. So, what personnel resources do you need to have in place to make that happen? You can list this out graphically in a flow chart. For a customer to get ice cream, someone needs to
take orders from customers
fill orders by dishing out ice cream
keep the counter in a ready condition to dispense ice cream
take money and make change
clean up drips and spills
So that's one set of frontline functions. Then you need someone to
hire and train the ice cream dippers
create routines for opening, closing, cleaning, and setup
evaluate and manage their performance
open and close the store
place orders for supplies before they run out
make sure there is cash on hand, and balance the register at the end of the day
To do their job, that person needs someone to
create and post a menu
choose uniforms and store decor
audit the accounting
handle marketing and advertising
You get the idea. Working back from your primary function(s), figure out what the chain of actions is needed to create it. Once you've got that pretty well mapped, you can see what kinds of structure would work. One trick is to think of functions, not people or their current job positions, because now is the chance you have to move the paper goods ordering task from Betty when it might more logically sit with Bob - and you won't see that if you start from "Bob's job is ordering paper goods." Jobs are just clusters of functions - so you can break down those functions in various ways.
posted by Miko at 10:26 PM on September 20, 2013
The classic, and very useful, exercise is to start from outcomes, and work back to understand what functions you need in place to create those outcomes. Then you will look for synergies between those functions - for instance, there may be several functions (grantwriting, PR, marketing, social media) that use the same set of skills and could possibly be filled by a single individual or a team.
So, let's say the job is to run an ice cream shop. What outcomes are you aiming to create? Your goal is for people to enjoy an ice cream treat of their choice. That is what your organization exists to do. So, what personnel resources do you need to have in place to make that happen? You can list this out graphically in a flow chart. For a customer to get ice cream, someone needs to
take orders from customers
fill orders by dishing out ice cream
keep the counter in a ready condition to dispense ice cream
take money and make change
clean up drips and spills
So that's one set of frontline functions. Then you need someone to
hire and train the ice cream dippers
create routines for opening, closing, cleaning, and setup
evaluate and manage their performance
open and close the store
place orders for supplies before they run out
make sure there is cash on hand, and balance the register at the end of the day
To do their job, that person needs someone to
create and post a menu
choose uniforms and store decor
audit the accounting
handle marketing and advertising
You get the idea. Working back from your primary function(s), figure out what the chain of actions is needed to create it. Once you've got that pretty well mapped, you can see what kinds of structure would work. One trick is to think of functions, not people or their current job positions, because now is the chance you have to move the paper goods ordering task from Betty when it might more logically sit with Bob - and you won't see that if you start from "Bob's job is ordering paper goods." Jobs are just clusters of functions - so you can break down those functions in various ways.
posted by Miko at 10:26 PM on September 20, 2013
We did this over year ago, and it was horrible and hard and difficult. Worthwhile, but expect it to take twice as long and be emotionally brutal on everyone.
If you have resources, get an external consultant or someone without skin in the game like a departing board member to do the interviews anonymously. We had a long-term volunteer interview staff and collate their feedback anonymously. That was very helpful for getting frank feedback. An anonymous email for feedback also works, where people can write into a form and have it sent directly to one secure source, but they have to truly believe their feedback will be kept confidential.
The exit interviews will be incredibly useful, but also need to be ooked at critically because of their built-in biases.
The most useful ideas came from talking to other organisations who had gone through changes or who had very different organisational structures. We got our new structure mostly from one organisation whose senior staff talked off the record with us about how it worked in reality, and then from a book on flat teams that I'd scanned and decided might work - I basically went through a lot of books, skimming for anything interesting, then narrowed down the models to what might work until we found something that did.
Talking to lots of other organisations off the record was the single most helpful thing I did because people told me what didn't work about their structure.
Really, if you have any funds, hire someone with experience in this to help you plan it. Done badly, it will gut your organisation with the additional cost of change and bad design.
I wish we had done a longer transition, but we had to do everything quite fast, in weeks/months. It would have been a lot easier on people to re-organise by department or process, one at a time, so people had time to adjust and see benefits.
posted by viggorlijah at 7:27 AM on September 21, 2013
If you have resources, get an external consultant or someone without skin in the game like a departing board member to do the interviews anonymously. We had a long-term volunteer interview staff and collate their feedback anonymously. That was very helpful for getting frank feedback. An anonymous email for feedback also works, where people can write into a form and have it sent directly to one secure source, but they have to truly believe their feedback will be kept confidential.
The exit interviews will be incredibly useful, but also need to be ooked at critically because of their built-in biases.
The most useful ideas came from talking to other organisations who had gone through changes or who had very different organisational structures. We got our new structure mostly from one organisation whose senior staff talked off the record with us about how it worked in reality, and then from a book on flat teams that I'd scanned and decided might work - I basically went through a lot of books, skimming for anything interesting, then narrowed down the models to what might work until we found something that did.
Talking to lots of other organisations off the record was the single most helpful thing I did because people told me what didn't work about their structure.
Really, if you have any funds, hire someone with experience in this to help you plan it. Done badly, it will gut your organisation with the additional cost of change and bad design.
I wish we had done a longer transition, but we had to do everything quite fast, in weeks/months. It would have been a lot easier on people to re-organise by department or process, one at a time, so people had time to adjust and see benefits.
posted by viggorlijah at 7:27 AM on September 21, 2013
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You might find the book "Images of Organization" to be useful -- my SO read it while getting a certificate in Non-Profit Management, and I found it interesting enough to keep after he finished. Similarly "Managing a Nonprofit Organization in the Twenty-First Century."
Tangentially related: Drive, by Daniel Pink, which is about motivation, and Decisive, by Chip & Dan Heath, about making better choices.
From the research side of it, I'm in the middle of reading "Just Enough Research" by Erica Hall, which comes out of the web design world, but seems to have a lot about organizational research. (Bonus: it's short!)
I'm a web developer in higher ed, with previous experience in non-profits, and a lot of curiosity about how people and orgs work.
posted by epersonae at 4:31 PM on September 20, 2013