Phil Le-Brun is an executive in residence at Amazon Web Services and a former corporate VP and international CIO at the McDonald’s Corporation. He is a sought-after speaker and has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. He is the co-author with Jana Werner of The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation (Amazon, Bookshop)*.
Most of us have gone through some version of a reorg. A lot of leaders have also implemented their own reorgs. Sometimes they work. Many times, they don’t. In this conversation, Phil and I discuss what goes wrong with reorgs and how we can do better.
Key Points
Organizations traditionally looked like the tin man from The Wizard of Oz: perfectly planned, many interchangeable parts, not flexible.
An octopus organization adapts, works independently to serve the larger whole, and is innately curious.
A reorg that starts with an org chart misses the complex organic connections you are unlikely to fully understand.
Prioritize structural stability while building internal flexibility.
Nurture the complex informal human networks that deliver value.
Be honest about objectives and communicate a reorg early.
Engage people by starting with smaller-scale change. Clarify the problem to be solved instead of the structural “answer.”
Resources Mentioned
The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation by Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner (Amazon, Bookshop)*
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