Reorg-Navigation-Principles

Reorg-Navigation-Principles

A reorganisation (reorg) is the deliberate restructuring of reporting lines, team boundaries, or strategic scope within an organisation. Lopp frames reorgs as inevitable in any company that is growing — the question is not whether they will happen, but how well managers and employees navigate them when they do.

For Managers Initiating a Reorg

Before announcing anything:

• Know why: A reorg without a clear strategic rationale is a political reorg, not a structural one. Political reorgs rarely solve the underlying problem and they burn trust rapidly.
• Minimise scope: Change as few individuals as possible. An iterative approach — adjusting what is broken rather than rebuilding the entire org chart — preserves team cohesion and reduces disruption.
• Communicate early, not last: The rumour mill activates the moment anyone suspects change is coming. Leaders who communicate late discover that rumours have already filled the gap — often in the worst possible direction. Transparency beats silence, even when the message is incomplete.

For Employees Surviving a Reorg

The immediate post-announcement period is disorienting by design. Three principles help:

• Assume good intent, provisionally: Even if the rationale is unclear or politically motivated, acting from assumed malice rarely improves outcomes. Extend provisional trust to leadership while gathering more information.
• Find your anchor: Identify your new manager and begin relationship-building immediately. The relationship to your direct manager is the most operationally important in any reorg.
• Rebuild context deliberately: Reorgs destroy context — shared history, working relationships, and team norms. Context-Capture becomes especially critical in this period; document what you know so it is not lost in the transition.

The Rumour Mill

Research on organisational change confirms that rumours surge in conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty — the exact conditions that reorgs create. Rumours fill the information vacuum when formal communication is absent or delayed, and they consistently skew negative. For managers, the antidote is not perfect information — it is early, honest communication that acknowledges what is known and what is not yet decided.

Free Electrons and Reorgs

Free-Electrons are particularly vulnerable during reorgs. Their high autonomy and cross-functional reach depends on informal organisational relationships that a structural change can sever overnight. Managers who understand this will explicitly protect Free Electron operating space post-reorg, rather than assuming their productivity will persist through structural disruption.

Post-Reorg Relationship Rebuilding

Reorgs reset social capital. Even strong performers with excellent reputations must re-establish trust with new stakeholders. This is not optional — it is the work of the first 90 days post-reorg, overlapping directly with the principles in Ninety-Day-Integration.

Related Concepts

• Managing Humans - Lopp - 2019
• Players-vs-Pawns
• Free-Electrons
• Manager-as-Communication-Hub
• Information-Starvation
• Context-Capture
• Ninety-Day-Integration

Sources

• Lopp, Michael (2019). Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager. 3rd ed. Apress. ISBN: 978-1-484-23712-4.

  • Chapter 39: “Rules for the Reorg” — dual-perspective framework for managers and employees navigating restructuring; the rumour mill as information vacuum; strategic vs political reorgs

• Bridges, William and Susan Bridges (2017). Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. 4th ed. Da Capo Press. ISBN: 978-0-738-21026-9.

  • The Transition Model: Endings → Neutral Zone → New Beginning; the psychological mechanism underlying why reorgs disorient employees even when they are strategically sound; transparency and support requirements in the neutral zone

• Stouten, Jeroen, Dominique M. Rousseau, and David De Cremer (2018). “Successful Organizational Change: Integrating the Management Practice and Scholarly Literatures.” Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 752-788. DOI: 10.5465/annals.2016.0095.

  • Meta-review of empirical change management research; communication quality and stakeholder involvement are among the strongest predictors of successful change outcomes; iterative and participative approaches outperform top-down mandates

• Bordia, Prashant, Elizabeth Jones, Cynthia Gallois, Victor J. Callan, and Nicholas DiFonzo (2006). “Management Are Aliens! Rumors and Stress During Organizational Change.” Group & Organization Management, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 601-621. DOI: 10.1177/1059601106286880.

  • Empirical study showing rumours spike during organisational change; they amplify uncertainty and emotional distress; employees who hear rumours before formal announcements experience significantly higher anxiety; early transparent communication is the primary management countermeasure

• Larson, Will (2019). “Running an Engineering Reorg.” Irrational Exuberance (blog). Retrieved February 2026. Available: https://lethain.com/running-an-engineering-reorg/

  • Practitioner guide covering scope minimisation, communication sequencing, and protecting high-performer relationships; explicitly addresses how reorgs can disrupt informal influence networks that senior individual contributors depend on

Note

This content was drafted with assistance from AI tools for research, organization, and initial content generation. All final content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by the author to ensure accuracy and alignment with the author’s intentions and perspective.