Square Peg in a Round Hole

With every reorganisation that goes through the exercise of restructuring, comes a degree of reshuffling of personnel. People move upwards and sidewards - rarely downwards.

When new equipment is bought within a company, the priority is that it is fit for the purpose you bought it for. Why buy a Cray Supercomputer when all you wanted was a laptop. Why buy a pair of scissors when what you really wanted was an industrial shredder.

The same can be said for the positions personnel are given after a restructuring. Just because a person's previous position had the title manager, doesn't necessarily mean you can put him into any managerial job.

Imagine, if you will, that the company is like a bridge. After the restructuring exercise, you still need the bridge to be standing and to carry a load.The components of the bridge have many and varied functions. The engineering tolerances applied to each component are dependant on their function.If you replaced a load bearing component with a non-load bearing one, the chances are your bridge will fail. The degree of failure will depend on the location and function of the component.This is also true on a larger scale. If you try to apply a set rules for one part of the bridge across its entire length, the chances are that the bridge will fail, although instead of in one place, it will fail at multiple points.

All too often restructuring comes about because of poor practise and poor communication. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Within every company, no matter how poorly it seems to be performing, there will be parts that do work. It is these parts of the company that should be taken as the example. What is it that they are doing differently ?

The mistake is to view the problem areas in isolation, resolve their problems and then apply those same changes throughout the rest of the company.

There is a common trend to make use of the services of external agencies when it comes to company restructure. Whilst their view will reflect current trends and should be impartial, it is also invariably ill-informed. To best utilise such a company is as part of a team, including in its ranks a cross section of employees. This way you have the advantage of experts in their field coupled with experts in yours.

Bear in mind when choosing the individuals, that if they are solely selected from residents of the Ivory Tower, that their view may only be that through their window.