Intrenion

Pattern: Reorg churn

Structures are repeatedly changed without altering incentives or authority.

Situation

  1. In this condition, the organization announces repeated reorganizations that alter reporting lines, team compositions, or department names at regular intervals.
  2. In this condition, employees are reassigned to new managers or units while performing largely similar work to what they did before.
  3. In this condition, formal organizational charts change more frequently than performance metrics, compensation systems, or approval processes.
  4. In this condition, similar coordination issues and project delays reappear after each structural transition.
  5. In this condition, internal communication frames each reorganization as a significant strategic shift or renewal.
  6. In this condition, informal influence networks remain stable across multiple formal structural changes.
  7. In this condition, employees spend recurring periods adapting to new structures through onboarding meetings, role clarifications, and process updates.

Assessment

  1. This occurs because leaders can change formal structure more easily than they can renegotiate incentive systems or redistribute decision rights.
  2. This occurs because visible structural redesign signals action to boards and stakeholders without confronting entrenched power holders.
  3. This occurs because performance evaluation and compensation mechanisms remain tied to legacy metrics that are not modified during reorganization.
  4. This occurs because informal networks and resource control persist independently of formal reporting lines.
  5. This occurs because short executive time horizons favor initiatives that produce immediate symbolic differentiation rather than slow institutional reform.
  6. This occurs because accountability for past outcomes can be diffused by resetting roles and reporting relationships.
  7. This occurs because no structural change is accompanied by enforceable shifts in authority over budgets, hiring, or prioritization.

Consequence

  1. Without a change to incentive systems or decision rights, recurring reorganizations will continue to reproduce the same coordination failures under new reporting lines.
  2. Without stable structural continuity, long-term initiatives will remain vulnerable to interruption and reprioritization.
  3. Without enforceable redistribution of authority, formal accountability will remain misaligned with actual control over resources.
  4. Without a reduction in structural churn, employees will rationally prioritize short-term political positioning over durable operational improvements.
  5. Without altering the underlying power structure, each new reorganization will reset expectations, leaving the prior constraints unresolved.

Decisions

  1. We decide to anchor our work to a defined set of deliverables that remain constant across reorganizations because this gives us continuity of output instead of redesigning our priorities with each new reporting line, and accept that this may reduce our visibility in newly favored strategic themes.
  2. We decide to document and publish our decision criteria and project rationales in a persistent shared record because this gives us operational stability when reporting structures change instead of relying on shifting verbal mandates from new managers, and accept that this may create friction with leaders who prefer discretionary reinterpretation.
  3. We decide to decline participation in structural task forces that do not alter budgets, hiring authority, or approval rights because this gives us time to produce measurable results instead of investing effort in symbolic redesign, and accept that this may limit our inclusion in informal influence circles.

Direct formulations

  1. I will keep my work focused on the same defined deliverables across reorganizations and will not reset my priorities every time reporting lines change.
  2. I will record and share my decision criteria and project rationales in a persistent document and will not rely on verbal instructions that shift with each new manager.
  3. I will not join structural task forces that lack control over budgets, hiring, or approval rights, and will instead spend that time delivering measurable results.