Wie können Sie nach einer Umstrukturierung eine innovativere und agilere Kultur aufbauen?

Restructurings must always serve the organisation’s overall strategy, rather than a short term cost cutting exercise. When you restructure, you need to know exactly which activities constitute waste and must be eliminated and which can be performed more efficiently. Restructurings should aim towards facilitating faster and more effective flow and use of data and information, as opposed to strengthening siloed decision making. Finally, restructurings must ensure that the organisation keeps from its talent pool those that better serve the future plans and needs of the organisation, as opposed to a biased process that involves personal agendas and/or short termism… To conclude, it’s about getting the restructuring right in the first place….

Constantly restructuring to take advantage of every opportunity available/ Opportunities dictate restructuring philosophies. Frugality, downsizing, digitizing, logistics, etc. just a few of the corporate decision-making considerations required for customer/ employee focus.

'Restructuring' is a step towards achieving the best. If a company decides to restructure its assets side, it is equally important to look at restructuring the liabilities side. If only the 'Cost of Capital' is monitored periodically, the 'Return on Capital Employed' will be as desired! Regular restructuring is also necessary for proper management of Long Term and Short Term assets and liabilities. The Profitability is only the outcome and the end result of a proper deployment of capital through regular restructuring. Companies which sit idle after the initial capital structuring are those who are out of picture sooner.

The single biggest issue with alignment around common vision and values in the corporate world is leadership's capability to live the values and to maintain the compass of their leadership practices aligned with the vision. An agile culture is one built on intensive feedback. So how about keeping the keenest possible eye on leaders' daily decisions and actions, offering them timely feedback when they slip away from the values and vision compass, thus sending the signal that they add value first by walking the corporate talk? That will bring clarity to all staff, who will follow the models they see on a daily basis, not the emails and posters on the walls.

As a starting point, we have to recognize that restructuring means changing everything that requires change, of course, taking in to account resources & priority. The second stepping stone would be the belief & faith of the stakeholders in its success. The third would be the trust of those who implement that there would be a fair reward. These are essential for the stakeholders to accept both vision and values.

In today's fast-paced and changing business environment, the ability to adapt and respond quickly is critical to achieving success. Organizational agility refers to a company's ability to adapt and react quickly to changes in the market, customer needs, and technological advancements. It involves shifting priorities, making decisions quickly, and implementing changes efficiently. Organizational agility is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses of all sizes and industries. With the rise of digital disruption, globalization, and rapidly changing consumer expectations, companies that are slow to adapt risk falling behind. In contrast, those that are agile can seize opportunities, respond to challenges, and stay ahead of the competition.

Often, resources are, first, used to improve customer & investor perception. While this may be a necessary imperative to retain or add customers and get resources, neglecting areas such as backend technology, risk management etc. can lead to failure in all spheres & low reputation. Therefore, it is imperative to empower the entire organization optimally.

Impacted teams are (should be) most vested in crafting the change, and implementing it. When they understand the expected outcome and tangible benefit to their role, are given tools and support, the change gains credibility and continuity. They know what “today” looks like and what could make “tomorrow” better. Enable them to work cross-functionally to identify change opportunities for their own role and that of their peers.

In my experience teams have to be configured to deliver value and that needs careful consideration of the skill set of the team, where members are complimenting each other. When you empower such teams then we can expect innovation and agility. For innovation another aspect is mutual respect in the team otherwise new initiatives would be dwarfed Sometime due to fear of rebuke or resistance.

The traditional (already!) Agile methodologies do not work as such in business environments for the simple reason that one cannot blend traditional management structures with Agile ways of work. What we can always do though is to empower existing teams to run their shows without having to climb the corporate approval ladder at every step of the operational life. All we need is clarity on who does what (ideally a RACI - responsibility | accountability | communication | information - matrix observed at all times) and leaders' capability to step back and let their teams work their magic. This is a tough one, as you'd need to secure clarity, engagement, and competence at the team level. Business agility requires investment in people.

Company must admit Whistleblowing with non-retaliation policy. An effective tool to know from employees themselves what gone wrong. Firm website should include this policy and a hotline as well, to secure a safe and easy way for communicating issues. The non retaliation part of the policy meant to secure that the whistleblower wouldn’t be punished by concerned groups in the firm which will foster this environment effectively.

Just as Risk Management & Compliance are expected to be independent, Human Resource Management must be independent enough so that they become the honest voice of both employees as well as management. The organization must have the wherewithal to know the contributors and reward them for their work. Often, reward system fails in the absence of this ecosystem, and rewards are given based on extraneous factors such as mere qualification or as retention strategy.

Map the potentially new roles and future growth expectations with employee career paths. Promote for initiative and from within. Set up impacted individuals as ambassadors of their own new roes. New tools, training and knowledge gained through the change process, with reinforced leadership commitment to the team, does open up exciting opportunities for advancement.

Innovation and agility require psychological safety - because they happen in a space full of errors. Yet we typically recognize and reward successes only. Too often, we even punish mistakes - regardless of the context and spirit in which they were made. So how about re-focusing on processes - how a decision was made, why an action was taken - instead of obsessing over results only? Imagine a world in which your motivated and skilled talent has clarity on how they add real value to the company, and they are unafraid to try new things, take risks, and share learnings from their mistakes. Imagine a world where psychological safety and company reward and recognition policy would hail the right effort instead of the result box checks.

Focus groups are an effective method of creating 2 ways communication channel about inclusion. A well designed questionnaire about accepting others with different race, ethnicity, gender, etc. would give the group master a well informed decision about the diversity and inclusion culture in the firm and accordingly an informed decision. I recall in my firm, a very talent question in one of the focus groups held regularly, “employees and Partners are using the Same rest room”? Even if might look weird while reflects to the point on many things like equality, inclusion, and a greater part on discrimination too. If those questions are smart enough, you will get competent answers that lead to informed decision too.

Diversity and inclusion is a function of the society and it should not be the responsibility of the corporate. The organizations must recruit those best suited without prejudice. In such a scenario, diversity & inclusion will happen naturally if the society empowers diversity & inclusion. Corporates can contribute to society through ESG initiatives.

To build a natural balance of diversity and inclusion, foster an environment of enthusiastic collaboration, learning, sharing and honest communication, to the exclusivity of almost all else.

Innovation takes time; we need to find edges, work them, and capitalize on the successful ones. Group think - which is what typically happens in homogeneous organizations - is not likely to produce innovation at a level that makes the difference. Allowing all kinds of thinking to manifest in order to find those edges requires solid group facilitation. Patience. Compassion. And time. We need to teach managers and put in place processes to allow for "ideas to have sex" in order to innovate. Diversity is hard to manage. It's hard to foster. Because it requires time, compassion, and patience so that everybody feels comfortable enough to go against the organization's "sacred cows" in order to find those edges.

Sometimes, organizations give in to the pressure of accountability. While accountability is important, it needs to be a very rationale exercise. Otherwise, the fear of failure or retribution can affect initiative, innovation, creativity, lateral thinking and decision making. Judgments based on hindsight without understanding the circumstances is not very uncommon.

Create a safe space for employees to experiment and try new approaches. Encourage them to think creatively, challenge the status quo, and learn from both successes and failures. Encourage rapid prototyping and iteration to promote learning and adaptation.

Allow and pressure everyone to contribute. Communicate and demonstrate that all ideas and contributions are valuable and are given equal consideration, before being prioritized, grouped for action. If it is not considered, explain to the contributor why it did not make the cut, and encourage them to keep bringing up similar, brilliant ideas. Involve cross-functional contributors to the project - you may be surprised where the breakthrough idea comes from.

Learning does not happen in a training room - it happens on the job. All we need to do in order to harvest all the learning that takes place on a daily basis is to create space for it to be processed and transformed into best practices that are then incorporated into updated work processes so that they become the norm for everybody. Let us stop using big words like "learning organizations" and "culture of learning" and just set up a management system where learning is part of the work!

Restructuring usually includes a headcount reduction, when that’s the case, it should always happen early and at once, followed by a clear message: “it needed to happen, and it won’t happen again”. The worst thing you can do in a restructuring is announce headcount reductions a second time. When it happens, employees start worrying about who’s next, when will it happen, and no one is able to focus on their actual responsibilities inside the company.

Clarify your Vision - Make sure everyone understands the goals and where the company is headed. Open Communication - Be open and transparent when communicating, encouraging your team to share their ideas and feedback without fear. Empower - Let people be adults, give them autonomy to make decisions and take ownership of their projects. Experimentation - Encourage trying new things, even if they might not work out. Continuous Learning - Support skill development, training, workshops, and resources that help. Create an environment where people feel motivated, valued, and excited to contribute their best, this will always benefit the whole organisation.

There is a basic question heare. Why did we do the restruction in the first place? Did we do it to make things more agile? Did we do it to make things more innovative? Did we do it to reduce costs? A restruction is an extreme situation of change. People do get laid off or made redundant. We need to be careful of the reasons behind. If we are to streamline the things for instance and implement Jusyt in Time Proccesses we are way out of agility. My point here is that we need to set the objectives before the actual act of restructuring.

Expect many to bring anxiety, distrust and animosity to the table. Be confident in your vision, ensure the plan is robust, and be clear on the outcome. Leverage others for help and give consideration to all concerns that are raised. Change does not happen on one person's efforts, and is a collective adventure.

Objective must be very clear, ambiguity in the goals or objectives lead to confused discourse and often is the cause of derailment of effort.. First things first, here it is perfect alignment of goals and objectives with crystal clear vision. This can be achieved with clear communication and a perfect buy in of all the team members.