Restructuring has become a favourite tool in the executive playbook. New CEO? Restructure. Poor results? Restructure. Merger? Definitely restructure. Yet frequent restructuring creates change fatigue, disrupts performance, and rarely delivers promised benefits.
How do you know when restructuring is genuinely necessary versus when it's avoidance behaviour—reorganising rather than addressing actual problems?
Five Signs Restructuring Is Needed
Strategy-Structure Misalignment
Your organisational structure should enable strategy execution. If strategy emphasises customer-centricity but structure is organised by product with no customer accountability, you have a problem.
Chronic Accountability Confusion
Multiple people claim to be accountable for the same outcomes, or no one owns critical decisions. This isn't solved by clearer role descriptions—it requires structural change.
Information Can't Flow
Critical information gets stuck in silos. Teams working on similar problems don't know each other exists. Structure creates barriers that prevent necessary collaboration.
Decision-Making Is Paralysed
Too many approval layers, unclear decision rights, or matrix structures where everyone has input but no one decides. This requires structural intervention, not process improvement.
Talent Is Misallocated
Critical business priorities lack sufficient talent whilst declining areas are overstaffed. Incremental adjustments haven't solved this—structural change is required to reallocate resources.
Two Signs Restructuring Isn't the Answer
Performance Problems
Poor performance is rarely solved by restructuring. If people aren't performing, changing their box on an org chart won't help. Performance issues require performance management, capability building, or personnel changes—not restructuring.
Cultural Issues
Culture isn't created by structure. Toxic culture, poor collaboration, or lack of innovation won't be fixed by reorganising. These require leadership change, behavioural change, and cultural transformation—not new reporting lines.
