Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#114 Restructures - the good, the bad, the ugly, and what comms can do about it

• Season 1 • Episode 114

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Let’s be real — restructures suck. They’re messy, stressful, and almost always handled poorly. But do they have to be? In this episode, we roll up our metaphorical comms sleeves and dig into why we keep getting restructures wrong (spoiler alert: it’s not just the org charts), and what communicators can actually do to help make them suck a little less.

From the jargon-laden emails no one wants to read, to leaders ghosting their teams at the worst possible time, we break down the usual chaos and chaos-creators. We offer up smart, human-first strategies to bring clarity, empathy and actual sense to these corporate shake-ups.

Because no, you can’t "comms" your way out of bad leadership — but you can help make the ride less bumpy. So if you’re a comms pro, change wrangler, or just someone who’s survived one too many restructures, hit play. It’s time to change how we talk about change. 


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It is the dreaded R word and an organisation's worst kept secret. I'm talking of course about restructures. If you've ever worked in any business of any size, you'll likely have experienced one yourself. Maybe you were impacted or a friend or family member was impacted. Maybe nothing changed for you. Maybe you got a new leader. Perhaps you joined a new team, or maybe you even took a redundancy. The thing is restructures are like air conditioning or printers. They're not a new thing. They've been around a really long time, and yet we still can't seem to get them to work. And while communicators can't solve all the problems inherent in how businesses manage restructures, we can do our part to make the transition as smooth as possible. How? Well, that's what today's episode is all about. Hello, friend, and welcome to a new episode of Less Chatter More Matter, the communications podcast. I'm Mel Loy, your host, and I'm recording this on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin, Brisbane. And today we're going to focus on the role of communications in restructures, or at least what our role should be. And the reason we're focusing on that is that I have worked on so many restructures in my career and for some reason ... organisations just can't seem to get them right when it comes to the change and comms work. I wrote about this on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago and the post blew up, so I took that as a sign that we should talk about this more. So first, let's start with some of the common reasons why restructures fail. And in my experience, there's six key reasons. The first is that there is zero co-creation happening. Senior leaders make decisions or they bring in consultants to make decisions on how the organisation should be structured. But it's their view of the world from up high. They don't get the input from the team members at the coalface actually doing the work. And when you have no skin in the game and no sense of control, it's really hard to accept the change. I want to make a point here though, in Australia, at least when changes like these happen. Uh, leaders do have to do consultation with teams who are impacted by the proposed structure; but the thing is, consultation is not the same thing as co-creation. Consultation tends to happen once the structure has already been decided. At best, they might take on some feedback at worst and pretty commonly it's simply just a tick box exercise and they go ahead and do what they want anyway. Number two, turf wars. I have seen C-Suite leaders get so precious about their realm of control. They don't want to give up anything they currently control. So rather than make decisions that are in the best interest of the business or the team members, they just make decisions based on their own egos and their perceived level of power. And that just creates more discord at the highest levels, which of course trickles down to team members. Number three, really poor communication. It's communication that's insensitive, sometimes it's deceptive, it's unclear... it's delivered in a way that's not the right channel or the right voice for the people that it's going to. I've literally experienced restructures where we were told that if our name didn't appear on the org chart, we were in the redeployment pool. Like seriously, what the hell? Number four. The impact of the change is underestimated. The work wasn't really done to understand the impact on people, teams, and ways of working. So when the restructure actually happens, people suddenly realise the support they once had within the business has evaporated overnight, or it's severely reduced. And then you have these shadow roles that pop up in different areas of the business, and you're back to where you started a decentralized model. I've seen this happen before, but there are ways to work with this, but we will save that for another episode. The fifth common reason is a lack of flexibility. So there seems to be this idea that once the structure is in place, there can be no further changes. That's it. But the reality is your business landscape will continue to change. So your structure needs to be flexible enough to keep evolving as well. And sometimes it's not until that new structure is in place that people realise it's not actually working. So there almost needs to be like a bit of a probation or experimentation period. And the sixth reason, poor leadership. This is where we see leaders making decisions, then back flipping on those decisions, sometimes multiple times, or making decisions that are pretty rash and emotional rather than slower, but well thought out. Now, I'm sure there's plenty more you could add to this list here, but they're my top six, so they're the challenges. What role can communications play in helping to mitigate some of them? If not, address 'em entirely. There's five things communicators should do when supporting restructures, so let's go through them. Number one. Call it what it is. Stop using stupid jargon, right sizing, downsizing, reorganising, optimising, whatever you're trying to call it. Just stop it. People are not stupid. And if you want to get people on side during a restructure, then you need to follow those three principles of change, communication, transparency, thoughtfulness, and timeliness. I remember once, many years ago in a corporate job. The C-Suite brought in one of the big four consulting firms to help with a restructure, and they called it the Business Improvement Program, or bip, BIP. Now, apart from the fact that we all knew they were just trying to put lipstick on a peak here, BIP became a verb in and of itself. So for example, if your team was being restructured. We called it getting bi. It was not a great look for that change. So when you're transparent and timely and thoughtful, you help to build trust. It's that trust that is going to make the path smoother, even for people who are negatively impacted. Being transparent means not hiding behind the corporate speak and the weasel words, and simply being open, honest, and clear. It's also about using concrete rather than abstract language. Concrete language means it's super clear and interestingly through the research they found that concrete language can improve, recall audience satisfaction, and improve the credibility of the messenger. If you use abstract language, that's words like anticipate, or we believe, et cetera, all you do is erode trust With that language, people can see through it and begin wondering what you're hiding. So if you are responsible for communications to support a restructure or you're coaching others, and encourage them to stop hiding behind the jargon and be really clear and call it what it is, a restructure. Now, number two, like I said earlier, many times the consultation undertaken by leaders in HR is little more than a tick box exercise designed to give the impression that they give a damn. So they go out, they talk to teams, they share the proposed structure, ask for feedback, nod wisely, and then go away and ignore everything. Now imagine being the team member in that situation and wondering why you bothered wasting your time and energy, giving feedback if it wasn't listened to. And apart from feeling pretty exasperated, it would also give the impression that the leaders who hold your job in their hands don't care. And again, that's not a great basis for a smooth transition to a new structure. So as comms pros, even if you can't control the consultation itself, you can try and influence it. So for example. In your draft comms strategy and plan, demonstrate how leaders will need to communicate before, during, and after consultation. And that includes things like sharing the key themes that came through during consultation, what was taken on board and why, what wasn't taken on board and why. And provide multiple ways for people to ask questions and share feedback and multiple ways to share those inputs and the responses. So for example, an intranet page with all the questions and responses, and keep it anonymous if you need to. If you can do this before, that's the co-creation piece. That's the piece that helps to influence the proposed structure before anybody sees a proposed structure. One of the things you can do, which, uh, we're doing with a client, uh, at the moment, we implement them about six months ago, and they're going really well, are holding these, ask us anything sessions. They've been invaluable. So basically people are able to submit their questions anonymously just through a Microsoft form. And then every month we have these sessions. They're 30 minutes. Just held on Teams, and the senior leaders then answer those questions, live one by one, and they can also take other questions during the session. Now, the benefit of doing it this way is that people know that there's gonna be this outlet to ask questions, but also as a communicator, you get this really good sense of what's on people's minds, where you need to be clearer with your messaging or where the gaps are in the messaging. And it can also show leaders that they need to step up. But that's a story for another day. So that's the second tip. Demonstrate how feedback is being listened to. Now, the third one is communicate with empathy. As I said earlier, there's those three T's of trust for

effective change communication:

transparent, thoughtful, and timely. Thoughtful is what we're talking about here, and that means a few things. First of all, as I said, empathy, remember, you are talking to humans, not robots, and humans have feelings. And during a restructure they'll have a lot of them and they could be very valid feelings as well. I've heard leaders say things like, it's not personal, it's business when communicating that someone's job is on the line. Well, sorry mate, but that's pretty personal for that person. Or I've also heard, I hate having these conversations. I feel awful. Yeah, well, the person you are talking to probably feels worse. Leaders often need communication coaching, not just understanding what their HR obligations are. When they're leading a restructure. So instead of making it about them, they need to focus on how the team member feels. It means asking how they're feeling, asking what they need, what questions they want answered. And in doing that they need to be okay with not always having the answers because you won't. But leaders can commit to finding the answers for their people. The other part of being thoughtful is tailoring the communication to the individual and the teams involved. There is no one size fits all approach and a blanket email just ain't gonna cut it. Individual conversations need to be tailored for each individual, so if they're a person who needs time to process before asking questions. Give them that option if they're likely to ask a lot of questions. Be prepared for that. Have lots of detail. Uh, some people need to talk through a role or structures others need that. Visual leaders should know their team members' communications preferences, and tailor accordingly. Now, that doesn't mean they should stray from the message. The essence of what's being said is the same. It's consistent across the organisation, and the focus is on that clarity. But the way the message is given will change depending on who the audience is. So that's number three. Communicate with empathy. Number four, be clear on the impacts in any change. People crave certainty. We love the status quo. We love a feeling of control. We are more likely to go for a sure bet than an uncertain outcome, even if the uncertain outcome could be better for us. What that means is we can't. Provide certainty. And so people become fearful. And when people become fearful, they become defensive, resentful, and upset. So where possible, we need to get really clear on the change impacts. As communicators, we need to work with the relevant stakeholders to find out, well, what is changing for each team? Apart from the structure, it could be the work they do, where they'll be located, who they'll report to, the tools they use, and so on. That very granular impact information has to happen because we need to make sure the message is as certain as possible, and it's also about asking what's not changing. Now, if you've been following me for a while, you'll know that this is one of my top tips in change comms; talk about what is staying the same. It helps to anchor people to something solid, something. Like the status quo. That gives them some relief. So again, ask what's not changing? It could be their leader stays the same, the tools they use aren't changing, their location, their internal clients, whatever it is. Be really clear on both what's changing and what's not changing, and also what's still unknown. That high level of clarity and transparency, people will thank you for. Okay. The fifth tip, well, this is the one that everyone always forgets about the communication after the structure is launched. What tends to happen is we go, today's the day our new structure comes into effect. Yay. And then carry on. The problem though is that people are then left wondering, well, who do I go to about what now? So for example, I used to go to Jane in IT to help with this particular platform, but Jane isn't there anymore. Who do I go to? Or I used to have a dedicated communications manager working with my team, but now we have to share that resource with three other teams. So there's a little bit of stakeholder mapping that leaders will need to do here alongside the communication they need to figure out... who their new stakeholders are in the business, set up conversations to build relationships. They need to be clear on the services they offer and don't offer anymore, and they need to find out who their key supporters are in the organisation if they have changed, and communicate that to their team members too. This also plays into what I said earlier, that we need to treat a new structure as a test or as an experiment, not a fixed construct. This is the probation period where you'll find out what's working and what's not with the new structure, and you'll tweak it accordingly. That flexibility has to be built into the project, but also communicated broadly. And like I said earlier, you need to show that you're listening to that feedback too. And my final tip, it's short, but it's sweet. Remember, you cannot communicate your way out of poor leadership. If leaders keep flip flopping between decisions, they aren't clear on what's changing and what's not, why we're changing in the first place. Our role is to advise them about the risks to their reputation. We can't just rub a bit of comms on it and make everything seem okay. When the reality is chaos, people see through it. And oftentimes it's enough just to mention the words reputation damage to them to actually get them to listen. Alrighty, it is time for your episode recap. So today we focused on all things restructures because they are a hot mess most of the time. We talked about some of the common issues, including lack of co-creation. So this means that the consultation happens after the structures have already been decided. Don't get me wrong. Senior leaders do need to look at the business regularly and ask if it's set up properly for the future and make decisions about the strategic direction and what a structure could look like to help achieve that. But they're usually too far removed from the coalface to really understand what every team contributes to the work. Two turf wars happen where leaders worry more about power and responsibility instead of worrying about is the business set up for success? A third challenge, really poor communication that can be insensitive, unclear, deceptive, or managed in the wrong way by the wrong people. Fourth, the impact of the change is underestimated because nobody's bothered to do an in-depth impact assessment, and that comes back to bite the organisation later when they realise they don't have the skills and resources they used to have and that they need. Lack of flexibility in the structure. It's a my way or the highway kind of scenario, rather than taking it as a test and learn process and making sure it's really set up to be able to adapt again in the future as the business environment changes. Number six, poor leadership leaders are not walking the talk, not taking responsibility for their role, making poor decisions or constantly changing decisions that have been made and so on. So then I shared five things communicators could do to help mitigate some of these issues. And the first is ditch the jargon in all your comms. Call it what it is. It's a restructure. People will see through you when you try to use any other language, and it doesn't help you build a sense of trust from your audience. They will appreciate the clarity. Number two, demonstrate how feedback has been listened to show that consultation was more than a tick box exercise and share the feedback received. Talk about what's been taken on board and why, what hasn't, and why. And this helps us to ensure that sense of transparency, but also that everybody's voices are valuable. Number three, communicate with empathy. Remember, we are talking to humans, not robots, and they'll have a lot of feelings during a restructure. Make the communication about them, not about you. Number four, be clear on the impacts, what's changing, but also what's not changing. Talking about what's not changing helps people to anchor to something while being clear on what is changing helps to alleviate some uncertainty. And number five, keep communicating. After the structure launches, talk about what's working, what's not. Encourage two-way communication from leaders and demonstrate that you are an adaptable, flexible organisation. And of course the bonus tip was remember, you can't comms your way out of poor leadership. Use the words reputation damage and see what happens. Okay, that's all for this week's episode. But before you go, I have two more things I'd love to share with you. Number one. My new book launches next week. Hooray. So Less Chatter, More Matter introduces a new framework to help get your communication to cut through the noise with techniques backed by behavioural science. I really hope you love it. Please go check it out. We'll put the links in the show notes. There's also a bunch of launch deals as well, so make sure you check those out and take advantage of them. And number two, if you love this show. Please share it with somebody else who might love it or take a moment to become a reviewer. It only takes about six seconds to rate and review, but makes a lifetime of difference to the show. Alright folks, that's all for today. Thanks again for tuning in. Keep doing amazing things and bye for now.