Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Leaders of reorgs typically fall into one of two traps when communicating with their employees. We’ll call the first one wait and see and the second ivory-tower idealism. Perhaps you have seen one, or both, in your own reorgs.

In the first trap, wait and see, the leader of the reorg thinks everything should be kept secret until the last moment, when he or she has all the answers. The leader makes the reorg team and leadership swear to secrecy and then is surprised when the news leaks to the wider organization (it always does, we’re afraid). As the reorg team starts to engage with the rest of the organization, the rumors round the water cooler increase: “They were asking what my team does”; “I had to fill in an activity analysis form”; “I hear that 20 percent of jobs are going to go.” Everyone thinks the real reason for the reorg is job losses (whether it is or not). The leader, desperate to get in control of the situation, pushes the team to develop “the answer” so that he or she can tell the organization. Without an “answer,” the leader feels that any communication would come across as defensive. At most, the executive approves some question-and-answer sessions on the reorg. But a full-scale communication needs to wait. Eventually, the leader has the answer: the reorg team produces a high-level org chart. The leader then announces the new organization: here are the new leaders, here is the structure, some job losses are necessary, but this is going to help us deliver fantastic results. Employees, hearing this, hear only that their boss’s boss’s boss is going to change and that some of them are going to lose their jobs. Nothing their leader has said counters the impressions they formed at the water cooler.

Ivory-tower idealism fares little better. In this version, the leader of the reorg is finally getting a long-achieved objective: all the issues of the old organization will finally get fixed; everything the leader wanted to do, but was held back from, can now be achieved. The leader can barely contain the excitement. So psyched up by the possibilities that the reorganization offers, the leader decides to start the process with a webcast to all staff, telling them about the exciting business opportunities it will open up. The leader follows this up with a series of walk-arounds in the major plants and offices, discussing the opportunities and getting input on some of the challenges that people face in the organization today. The leader puts a personal blog on the company intranet....