How to Spot a Reorg From a Mile Away (and what to do about it)
Advice for mid-career product professionals struggling to cope with company shifts
In a private professional group I’m in a PM asked about how to manage constant reorgs at her company. She said “I was looking for more meaningful work, a bigger impact but ironically - there’s so much change. I have no idea how to succeed if there’s no consistency in team or product.” This post is a longer version of my response to here intended to help those navigating the trials and opportunities of a rapidly changing organization.
The double edge sword of big companies and bigger startups is there are tons of teams and opportunities that are constantly shifting as the company adapts. This sometimes means lots of reorgs - the company makes a big change to the structure, people, and who works on what.
From my experience at Google in the beginning every reorg was a total shock and upended my world.
My work and the people I was working with would change dramatically seemingly overnight.
I had to say goodbye to people who I thought were doing great work because an office closed, teams were consolidated, or roles were eliminated.
Sometimes it felt like just when the team and product was gaining momentum everything was changed again.
So frustrating.
So what can you do as someone who is just fed up with reorgs?
First understand why reorgs happen.
The most difficult about reorgs is when you feel blind sided. After awhile I could spot a reorg coming from a mile away and would get in the conversation early so I could pick where I wanted to be in the new structure. Now as a product leader I've had to call for and lead a few reorgs, and I understand better why they are needed.
Here are some signals of spotting an impending reorg:
New leader: A new leader inherits a team, strategy and org structure. Often after a few months they want to change some aspect of it to match what they have seen work well or bring in people they know.
New strategy: If the strategy is sufficiently different it may require a new org structure to support it. From a company perspective it's good if you are nimble enough to change your org to match your strategy, but it can be painful for teams as sometimes means roles get eliminated while new ones open up.
Very slow growth or fast growth: The extremes of growth on both end usually result in a need to change the org structure to either fix the growth probs (by killing a product or changing strategy) or support the acceleration through scaling efforts.
Understand Deeply, Then Advocate Early
Even if you know a reorg is coming, it can be painful and exhausting to go through.
Here’s a few tips on how to survive and even thrive:
Invest in really deeply understanding the company / team strategy and plan via relationships.
Those emails from execs that set the vision for the year or quarter and goal setting hold hints and signals. These are great to dig into in 1:1 convo with your manager or cross functional peers. What does this strategy mean for our team? Are we thinking about hiring new roles? What might happen to this other team if we do? Ask good questions early and you will get hints or even someone just straight up telling you it's coming. After awhile at Google I was usually in the loop before the reorg happened.
Push for what you think is the right structure / role and don't feel bad about it.
When you get this signal a reorg is coming or even afterwards you can advocate for the role or structure you want. Sometimes people - especially from non-traditional backgrounds - feel out of line about it but you can bet that many of your peers are shamelessly having side bar convos. One way to do this is think about if you were the org leader how you would structure it considering not just what you want but also what the company / team needs. I have successfully pitched alternative structures that I think will work better.
If all the reorg-ing stresses you out see if you can get on a team at the company that's in more of a steady state which is usually not the primary focus area.
Teams with steady growth are less likely to re-org. They are more in the middle of the work / reward payoff for career and impact. If this appeals to you, read Ken Norton’s post here: https://newsletter.bringthedonuts.com/p/stay-out-of-the-wind-and-away-from-the-back
Hope this is helps people navigating the stress of company reorgs and ride the ups and downs of change in tech companies.