What executives should consider about…No-fault reorganizations

Most businesses are not designed like a piece of architecture. They evolve. Sometimes they evolve into fairly rational and well organized operations, but most, like a human with a sixth toe, have characteristics that don’t enhance their effectiveness and wouldn’t be there if they were the product of careful intentional design.

The business may not need the duplication or fragmentation of purchasing services, but it may have them as a product of evolution or trial-and-error growth. It may not need the duplication, at several levels, of shop drawings or specifications, but it may have them because a basic problem wasn’t fixed and a new “work around” became a permanent part of company structure.

There are many times when an unneeded work process, like the sixth toe, can be ignored, especially when there is no pain involved. But when the company is stressed by an economy like ours, when the foot doesn’t fit in the new running shoe, the small anomaly can become a big problem. Multiple anomalies, duplication of processes, gaps in communication and less-than-effective habits in key people can all combine to have an almost crippling effect on business sustainability.

For an executive, wading into an established network of inefficiencies can be intimidating, somewhat like taking on the job of redesigning a jury-rigged piece of farm machinery during harvest time. There are a bewildering number of moving parts, connected by other moving parts, and, if asked, the operator of each part will say that particular piece is essential to the machine’s operation. The machine can’t be stopped so deciding what can and must be changed and how to perform the change itself, is critical.

There are also elements of shame and fear of discovery involved, especially if the executive or the people who have been running the machine aren’t new on the job. Once the executive or a re-design team begins to look inside we can be sure that someone will be asking or demanding to know “Who built this? How did it we ever let it get this way?”

One key to successfully reorganizing the way work is done is to avoid getting caught up in a blame game. Remember, businesses aren’t generally designed like a piece of architecture.

There is no one designer at fault and no value in hunting down the innocent.

The inefficiencies that developed, those that are now clunking, clattering and smoking and that everyone is just now noticing, are derived of honest attempts to cope with pressing issues as they evolved. The solutions were probably right for the time and for the situation but not for the long term. If there was an error at all it was probably in everyone being too busy to take the work around out of the system once the issue that required it was addressed.

The first step then, in becoming stronger, more efficient and better able to cope with a downturn, is to create an environment where everyone understands that the work of getting better by revisiting old inefficiencies is fault free. The second is to create a team that can take a step backward, away from all the noise and smoke and ask, “Now where do we begin?”

Tom Aranow is a former CEO who now consults with CEOs and other executives as a Senior Advisor with Harrington Daniels Advisors, LLC. He may be reached at Tom@hdadvisors.com.