Design Reorg #1: the why

Recently I was fortunate to be part of a design panel hosted by Wayne Robins to share my thoughts on design leadership. Initially I was a bit hesitant if my experience is still relevant as I'm retired and have been focusing more on design education rather than actively working with design teams on shaping customer experiences.

Then the topic of navigating design reorgs came up and it triggered many thoughts and emotions.

Plus the recent elections in the US has put me into a similar headspace on reorgs. A reorg can create disruptive changes overnight along with all the feelings that you might not have anticipated. At the same time, a reorg is very different from an election.

First there's no vote! Your voice might not be heard, you likely don't have a say on the direction or strategy for the change. You are part of the change and it will impact you in many ways. You could have a new manager, be on a new team, work in a new product area, or even be in a new company. It's incredibly distracting, disengaging and could result in you seeking new opportunities or facing the most difficult outcome, finding there isn't a role for you anymore.

How does a design leader navigate and lead through these changes with respect and empathy? It's one of the more difficult tasks and can come up as a result of company mergers, reorgs, shifts in business strategy and program priorities.

There is so much to unpack on this topic that would be difficult to fit into a single post, so I'll share my thoughts in a series with the goal to facilitate a broader discussion.

Most design team members first hear about upcoming changes through email - likely a note about leadership changes or business group moves or an acquisition or merger.

But before that email goes out, senior design leadership works behind the scenes to plan the changes, often with very tight timelines.

Planning the Changes

A design leader might learn of the changes months, weeks or sometimes just days before the planned announcement. Even with short timelines, the first step is to create the why - why do we need this change?

Focus on the problem and challenges we're addressing. Take a customer centric view for the team, don't look inwards. The why shouldn't be about people on your team. One of my biggest lessons was bringing in new leadership and creating a new direction without bringing clarity about why the opportunity was critical for our customers.

Share the problem and opportunity, why the changes will solve the problem. If there's a new charter for your team, create that shared purpose that will energize and re enroll the team to join you.

Now that you have the why and the shared collective purpose, treat it like a design problem. Generate different org designs, write it down and draw it up. Gather feedback from key stakeholders and peers in your org. Use your org design as a vehicle to gather support. This is a step that often falls flat, and I've made many mistakes assuming there's a perfect org design. There isn't a perfect org nor a perfect design, any structure you create should be optimized for the outcomes at that time.

Another key mistake I've made is designing the org around the people you have. As empathic and servant leaders, design leaders want to help everyone grow and reach their potential. At the same time, you might have blind spots on the capabilities and talent you need on your team.

With your new org design, evaluate if you have the right set of design capabilities to deliver on your goals. What's missing? Are there critical roles you need to fill or leadership gaps you see? This is the hardest part, you can create the ideal org design, but you might not be able to deliver on the goals because you don't have the capabilities and talent.

If you have gaps, do you iterate on the org design to minimize them, or seek new talent capabilities or move teams to be part of your team to address those gaps?

Now you can see why reorgs are challenging for design leaders,? there isn't an opportunity to prototype to build it and try it out. You have to make do with what you have at that time.

For design teams at scale, an additional dimension you need to consider is moving teams and charters across org boundaries. Centralizing design functions across product orgs, is one of the biggest, and most difficult design tasks any design leader can take on. At this scale, you have design managers of design managers with a large span of control and multiple product charters. To effectively navigate reorgs at this scale, you need to ask for help, from internal leaders, with people operations partners, to even external coaches who you can share your perspective with and iterate on the plans. Don’t just treat it like another reorg. Happy to share more on design reorg at scale if there’s interest, please reach out.

Now if you do it right, you will deliver on the potential of the team to deliver the customer impact.

Next up: The Email - rolling out the design reorg.