Plan B Needed.
Restructuring Failed.

Six months had gone by since the restructuring from three local teams into one global team.

However, it did not feel as if the team was operating as ONE to the leader of the team. He, therefore, engaged Innovisor to deliver a team network diagnostic. Something he knew from his past that could make the invisible visible and pinpoint any gaps needing to be bridged and meet people where they were now… He wanted the people to play an active role in the creation of a plan B.

Five days later his gut feeling was confirmed.

The collaborative relationships formed in the old legacy structure were sticky and almost all were still 100% intact.
“Was this a result of active employee resistance to the restructuring?”, he pondered. The Innovisor data told a different story. All employees were committed to working as one global team. They had a strong desire for building new relationships across the global team. However, they struggled to find out how.

72% did not feel they had sufficient knowledge of their colleagues and competencies, and knowledge sharing across the legacy teams was not taking place. So, when they needed help with a problem or issue, they reached back to the people, they already knew from the legacy organization. ‘Better ways of working together’ and ‘Clearer responsibilities’ were recommendations shared.

Additionally, 35% suffered from not having relationships with a least one person from the leadership team.

Leadership was in fact the root cause of the failed restructure.

The 5-person leadership team had been formed by the three former local team leaders and 2 people, who got promoted into this position. They struggled to:

• Manage new employees from 3 different time zones
• Let go of others
• Not get involved in the daily operations

Meanwhile, they had ignored connecting to each other in the leadership team and building a coherent leadership team. One of the six blockers for successful change identified by Innovisor. Especially two of these leaders needed to rebuild a relationship.

The plan B for getting the restructuring back on track needed to fix this root cause problem first. It was a pre-condition for success. Secondly, it engaged an outside HR business partner to help solve the collaborative challenges for the global team. Something the leadership team clearly had underestimated the importance of.

Many restructuring activities fail miserably. The leaders know it. The people know it. The external stakeholders know it. Still, often nothing is done to win back on the original intent of the restructuring. Harming performance and work lives. Don’t be that leader! Do something!

The Team Experience Diagnostic of Innovisor has proven to bring the evidence leaders to need to take to develop a plan B that is embraced by the people. It only takes 5 days from your start to have the results. Read more here: https://www.innovisor.com/the-team-experience-diagnostic/

• Case: Sticky legacy collaboration harms intended potential of transformation: https://www.innovisor.com/2022/06/14/sticky-legacy-collaboration-harms-intended-potential-of-transformation/
• Case: Connected leadership is the key to change: https://www.innovisor.com/2021/06/10/connected-leadership-is-the-key-to-change/