In their report for Hult Research (Re-)Designing Organisations – Lessons from the Field, Philippa Hardman and Dev Mookherjee set out what they have learnt from their research and the implications for practitioners embarking on a redesign of their own organisation.

During the fact-finding phase of compiling their report for Hult Research (Re-)designing Organisations – Lessons from the Field, Philippa Hardman and Dev Mookherjee were frequently told—often in hushed tones—that, rather than being the outcome of a rigorous and objective process, new organisational designs had been “gamed” or simply pushed through by senior stakeholders with a preordained view of the result : “I guess that, as in many companies … basically at the end sometimes our CEO decides what it is.”

Very few redesign approaches were described as “clean”, whereby decisions were taken objectively following a logical process. It seems that, as in life, the realities and pressures of relationships, vested interests and priorities lead us to make sub-optimal decisions. Leaders can be heavily influenced by assumptions about what a future organisation should look or feel like, and seek to make this a reality in spite of what facts might indicate. David Armstrong describes this phenomenon as “The Organisation in the Mind”.

That is not to say that we should shrug our shoulders and accept untested subjective preferences. The challenge for leaders is to acknowledge (to themselves and to other team members) their assumptions while staying open to new data that may emerge. Easy to suggest but difficult in practice.

We also know that many leaders are acutely aware of the difficulty of making objective decisions within their own leadership teams and acknowledging that they could be designing a future in which they do not feature. This led some organisations to outsource the whole process to keep decisions clean. “It’s one of the appeals of getting outsiders to do it. They come with no baggage; they’ve got no ‘skin in the game’”.

That may be the advantage of using external consultants. However, there are also downsides. One executive bitterly lamented that very large parts of the redesign process had been outsourced to consultants, resulting in reduced interest in learning, high fees and a loss of control for the sake of perceived objectivity and expertise.

Whether you use external support or not, perhaps it is unrealistic to believe we can banish subjectivity from the process or make all redesigns squeaky clean. After all, subjective decisions are sometimes necessary.

Bringing this taboo out into the open; being more transparent about the realities of redesign and the process implemented, and about who will be making those all-important decisions, would go a long way to improving trust and confidence among those affected by redesigns.

As noted by Hardman and Mookherjee in their introduction, changing the structure and design of an organisation used to be considered an exceptional event. In today’s turbulent and complex times, however, redesign has become increasingly commonplace and is viewed by many as an ongoing process. Despite this increased frequency, organisations tend to find redesigns challenging processes that often don’t address the problems they set out to resolve.

Hardman and Mookherjee go on to set out what they have learnt from their research and the implications for practitioners embarking on a redesign of their own organisation.

The authors say of their methodology: “In undertaking our research we weren’t interested in theory; however helpful this can be. We wanted to find out about the actual experience of organisations that had gone through a redesign process, as our own experience of the reality of organisational redesigns often seemed to be much more complex, contextual and richly layered than described in textbooks. What had it been like and what had it felt like? What had worked? What hadn’t? What would a senior manager do differently next time, facing a similar need to redesign?”

Here, we outline 7 tips for anyone considering redesigning their organisation.

• Decide whether restructuring is actually required or whether a similar outcome could be achieved by changing other elements of the organisation instead (for example, work processes).
• Choose a redesign project resourcing model that is appropriate for your organisation and the scale of the change required. The resourcing archetypes set out in the research report can provide further guidance.
• Use consultancy support wisely. Be clear from the outset about what type of support you want and where you want consultants to focus. Make sure consultants convey their knowledge to your people. Be clear which role you would need consultants to play: ‘Expert’ – where the consultant provides expert input when required; ‘Pair of Hands’ – where the organisation is resource-constrained and the consultant fills a resource gap; or ‘Collaborative’ – where the consultant brings their expertise to work alongside an organisational client with knowledge of their own organisation (Block, P.,1999).
• Manage expectations about timing and process with all key stakeholders and with all those likely to be affected by the change.
• Recognise, accept and, where possible, address the fact that decision-makers often start with people in mind for specific roles in what should really be an objective process whereby structures and roles are still to be defined.
• Be honest and authentic. Don’t pretend you are genuinely interested in getting people’s input and finding out their points of view if you then disregard this intelligence. Choose whether you are using a ‘persuasive engagement’ approach, whereby you have made a decision and are looking to persuade others to implement it, or a ‘collaborative engagement’ approach, where you seek input for possible approaches (Hardman and Nichols, 2011).
• When the redesign involves redundancies, remember the people who remain in-post. Heed  their needs, whether these entail psychological support or retraining. Don’t simply offload the work of those made redundant on to these “survivors.”

Full details on the findings from this research can be found in the full report.