Change is one of the most difficult components of any leader’s job, especially when the change includes adjustments that the leaders themselves must undergo. The management team of DTCCL was unanimous in the belief that in order to better meet the needs of the lines of business that the customer training organization supported the team needed to both adapt an organizational structure and development methodology that better enabled rapid and iterative development, quick reaction to change, and closer customer collaboration.  The decision was thus made to restructure the organization from one where designers reported into one silo, instructors into another and business analyst into a third, into one where teams that were made up of designers, instructors, analysts and technologists reported into learning domains that were responsible for all learning support for specific lines of business.

The leadership team was also in agreement that the current “waterfall” approach to learning product development would not allow us to react as quickly as we needed to a rapidly changing business environment. With the agreement in place, the date of the reorganization and timing of the agile training was decided.

For my direct reports, the excitement about the opportunity to evolve from roles where they were essentially expert technologists or instructional designers who oversaw teams of technologists or designers, into positions that allowed them to become leaders of business units that were responsible for providing all learning solutions to a portfolio of product lines, was tempered with an anxiety about their ability to perform in these new roles. To make life more difficult, members of the staff began to sense that something was about to happen and began to ask questions.  The rumors hit an all-time high when a meeting request for a mandatory “all hands” meeting went out.

As the employees entered the meeting room, it was obvious that everyone was on edge.  I wasted no time getting to the point.  I explained to everyone that I was calling them together to announce a reorganization.  I briefly explained the rationale for the changes that we were making which included feedback the team members had provided.  With that, my assistant handed out a three-page document.  On page one (without names) was a graphic of the organizational structure that we had operated in for the past several years.  I quickly spoke about the positives and negatives of that structure.  On page two (also without names) was a graphic of the new structure.  I spent a few minutes speaking to the benefits of that configuration.  Page three presented the new structure with names assigned to teams.

Without prompting, team members began asking questions.  Most were about workflow and process issues.  I explained to the team our new approach would be one where each team would decide for themselves how to get the work done as opposed to a methodology that was largely engineered by management and pushed down to them.

For the employees who felt the burden of being constrained by process, I could see a visible sigh of relief. For those who took comfort in the structure that those processes provided, I observed nervous looks. The Q & A continued for the better part of 45 minutes after which time I assured everyone that this change was a “win-win” for everyone in the organization and that I was sure that they could make it work.  I also provided everyone with all of my contact information and invited them to contact me any way they felt comfortable if they had questions, concerns, or just wanted to talk.

I returned to my office expecting both a line of employees with gripes and plenty of voicemail messages with employees expressing dissatisfaction.  I waited about an hour and no one stopped by.  Curious, I called one of my directs to find out what the response was.  He informed me that the feedback had been very positive and in fact the staff was excited about the new possibilities.  I did my customary follow-up phone calls and “drive by” conversations to get feedback and received the same messages.

I checked my email and found several notes from staff thanking me for how the reorganization was handled and expressing excitement about the opportunities it offered.  With agile training scheduled for the next week, part one of our transition to developing and measuring training the agile way has started on the right foot.