The best way to reorganize an organization in such a challenging situation
is to downstructure (remove structure) rather than downsize (remove cost
by removing people) or restructure (change structure). Downstructuring can
be achieved fairly easily using "domino theory" in which you remove one
piece of structure and this has a knock-on effect on behavior and other
structure.
For example, when British Petroleum changed from a regional to a
functional organization, they created a network such that instead of
someone in France with a petrol leak calling their boss in France, that
person called his or her counterpart in Austrialia who did the same job
and had a similar problem a few weeks back. In today's global world,
nationality is not the most important thing- expertise is, and that
expertise can come from around the organization. You would probably be
suprised how many multinational firms are reinventing the wheel and each
working on similar solutions for similar customers in different operating
territories because they do not communicate across structural borders.
The CEO and COO are in a percarious situation because if they insist on
keeping decision making centralized, then the organization will
underperform. It is the organizational imperative to devolve decision
making so that transient opportunities in the marketplace can be taken
advnatage of. Even the right decision at the wrong time is the wwrong
decison- speed is everything. Arrogant = Dead, and the secret of success
is to defunct yourself- and then reinvent yourself through learning.
It sounds like you have some sort of mandate for change- but you either
need a crisis in which fundamental operating premises are reassessed, or
use domino theory to downstructure. It works- see the case studies and
implementation tools on my home page!
Regards, sincerely Simon Buckingham, www.unorg.com, buck@dial.pipex.com
unorganization: business not busyness!
--Simon Buckingham <go57@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>