Question

As advised by the company president, the sales department received a set of specific recommendations provided by an outside management firm to reorganize for maximum effectiveness. The sales manager believes that a few of the sales staff may disagree with the recommended changes. The sales manager herself is also not fully convinced of the merits of all of the recommendations, but she wants to implement them, at least in part. How should she proceed?

Answer 1

The sales manager should first do an internal study of organizational effectiveness in her organization. She should see what is the current organizational structure, what are the hierarchies, and what is the productivity in terms of the current organization structure.

I would next check the recommentations provided by the management firm. What type of reorganization are they suggesting? Is it practical? Is it simply a theoritical approach that they are suggesting? I would first suggest that she look at the productive suggestions, or no brainers which, if implemented, will bring in guaranteed benefits.

I would also ensure she talks to other heads of the department to see how their functions are structured and get their opinions of this restructuring. No doubt, this would require some consultation from internal colleagues as well.

Finally, I would basically expect her to study the top few recommendations in which she finds merit in implementing, and see if any of them have anything to do with cutting down the size (this would be a key change which would face resistance), or if there is anything to do with re-assigning people to other functions (another area of resistance).

She should then call the affected employees and have a one to one chat with them, explaining the need for these changes and why they are important to the organization. Changes are definitely inevitable, they are also difficult sometimes, but they are necessary for an organization to keep up with competition and also to continuously stay ahead of the curve!