A Practical Guide in Five StepsMost executives will lead or be a part of a reorganization effort (a reorg) at some point in their careers. And with good reasonreorgs are one of the best ways for companies to unlock latent value, especially in a changing business environment.But everyone hates them.No other management practice creates more anxiety and fear among employees or does more to distract them from their day-to-day jobs. As a result, reorgs can be incredibly expensive in terms of senior-management time and attention, and most of them fail on multiple dimensions. It’s no wonder companies treat a reorg as a mysterious process and outsource it to people who don’t understand the business. It doesn’t have to be this way.Stephen Heidari-Robinson and Suzanne Heywood, former leaders in McKinsey’s Organization Practice, present a practical guide for successfully planning and implementing a reorg in five stepsdemystifying and accelerating the process at the same time. Based on their twenty-five years of combined experience managing reorgs and on McKinsey research with over 2,500 executives involved in them, the authors distill what they and their McKinsey colleagues have been practicing as an art” into a science” that executives can replicatein companies or business units large or small. It isn’t rocket science and it isn’t bogged down by a lot of organizational theory: the five steps give people a simple, logical process to follow, making it easier for everyoneboth the leaders and the employees who ultimately determine a reorg’s success or failureto commit themselves to and succeed in the new organization.
