How common sense could have made new announcements and hires a success instead of an awful flop ?

Common sense/practical wisdom in business : ?Topic #1

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Starting 2024, many companies are finishing or about to finish their fiscal year, and they're about to announce new organizational structures.

As I've written before, ensuring controlled communication will be crucial for the teams to understand any new organization, no matter how "small" it may be. We'll have anticipated the easy and more complex questions that teams might have, whether they're directly impacted by the changes or not.

The objectives behind the changes must be very clear, even if not fully shared by all teams. The expected benefits should obviously outweigh the anticipated difficulties of such change.

Sounds like common sense, right? But, how many of these structural changes have not led to the expected results?

I'm sharing here three examples that most of us faced a few times.

Example 1: "Currently, revenue from large enterprises represents a minor portion, X%, of our revenue, but we aim to double this within 2 years. We will therefore segment the company differently to better meet these growth objectives."

What's often overlooked: Focusing on a segment (here, large accounts) likely comes with hiring new, qualified personnel.

If a company expects rapid growth (I know of no counterexamples to date), this implies an immediate response from the teams. And for these teams to be immediately operational, their profile must match the task.

Too often, these new structures consist merely of moving existing personnel from team A to team B.

However, common sense and experience show us that an excellent salesperson in a "mid-size" segment does not necessarily mean:

1. They will be good in a "high-end" segment (and vice versa).
2. They want this career trajectory change (Not all "Mid-Size" salespeople dream of doing "high-end", not all SDRs dream of becoming ISRs, not all ISRs necessarily dream of becoming Account Managers, and not all Account Managers necessarily dream of becoming team managers. There, I said it!)

Moreover, merely mentioning these roles in this order suggests an implicit hierarchy in the minds of many managers, whereas a motivated individual in their job will contribute much more to the company's success than someone placed where management believes they will be happy.

Thus, surveying the field weeks before such changes can prevent an "attrition rate" in the six/nine months following the announcements and a conclusion where everyone loses, starting with the company.

This will also allow for a recruitment plan tailored to the growth objectives.

Example 2: "We are creating a new department with the goal of increasing our capacity to sell better/more in market X or Y."

Common sense leads us to think that a change is presumably in the interest of the company as a whole; otherwise, what's the point?

However, in reality, it is often not perceived as such, with the risk of lesser or non-existent support and, in the worst case, undesired departures or an unspoken resistance to change.

Here are two cases frequently encountered:

1. An organizational announcement, presented and endorsed by the Executive Management, is perceived by the teams as a career progression for one or several individuals but whose benefit for the company remains unclear or even counterproductive for various reasons (New managers lacking the experience or credibility required to successfully carry out their new functions, etc.)
2. Expected benefits that do not take into account significant foreseeable obstacles in the implementation of the new organization (e.g., teams whose areas of responsibility overlap leading to internal conflicts and the impossibility of identifying the cause of problems, misaligned or even contradictory commission plans, the time necessary for adopting a new structure internally AND externally)

In all cases, an insufficient or hastily compiled list of reasons for these changes will leave employees speculating (and thus losing time and consequently their productivity) on all points not clarified in advance.

If common sense and a bit of critical thinking allow anticipating and addressing all these questions by working on them beforehand, personal interests and politics are sometimes so present that it is difficult for a decision-maker to stick to the only rational facts because they themselves are not immune to being manipulated by one or several "charmers."

Possible solutions:

• Assuming all its implications, the wisest solution would probably be to seek external and truly independent advice from internal politics.
• Otherwise, prepare a real argument of the "Why ?" that would start with the expected benefits and challenges as well as a realistic timeline for adoption.

Example 3: Organizational changes and new entrants.

Many organizational announcements come with new managers joining the company.

While a certain confidentiality is obviously necessary for any hiring, this should not be done at the expense of basic checks, starting with the people directly impacted by this choice.

Common sense? Yes, certainly.

But have you never seen announcements of new managers who will end up never joining your company or who, a few weeks after joining, are directly or indirectly responsible for numerous undesired departures or worse?

Have you never received calls from former colleagues informing you that person X or Y who was about to join your ranks was a "big mistake"?

While no one ever achieves unanimity, it is, however, worrying when several of these proactive calls occur about the same individual.

So, how do we explain such hiring errors and how to remedy them?

Just as common sense strongly advises against announcing the success of a sale before it is concluded, it is better to avoid announcing the imminent arrival of a collaborator to the concerned teams at the same time as the public announcement.

If no one among the current teams is consulted about a potential new arrival during the interview process, it is, in my opinion, essential to share the information with some (under NDA if necessary) before proceeding with any definitive hiring or public announcement.

In my experience, this happened three times in similar contexts: The recruiters were based in a different country from where the hiring was planned (thus with limited means of controlling the candidate's reputation) AND no one in the local entity had been consulted.

Taking references, as we know, is not enough because there are candidates good at selling themselves even though they have a background that is at least dubious.

I would therefore always advise involving a few people from the local country at some stage of the recruitment.

Beware of a particular case: That of involving people managed by a potential new manager too early in the recruitment process.

Example: The company is looking for a CMO and starts the interview cycle with two Marketing people who will report directly to the CMO. The risk here is to see candidates discarded because their ideas (innovative, for example) will make them excluded by people allergic to change.

Haven’t I heard you say “Sure, that’s common sense”? But yet.. ??

As usual, ALL comments and contributions are welcome either publicly or through personal messaging.