Five Guiding Principles for Organizational Repositioning

In the words of Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and CEO of IBM, “Growth and comfort do not coexist.” If you work in a growing organization, you know this could not be more true.

Plenty of examples can be found of floundering or defunct organizations that failed to innovate. But what if your organization is doing well? “If it’s not broke, do we fix it?” To stay relevant in today’s rapidly changing business landscape, visionary leaders across the globe know the answer to that question, and have organizational repositioning plans in process years ahead of the trends.

If your organization grows and evolves as rapidly as we do at Faith Technologies, you know the exhilaration and stress this type of change can cause. When you or your team start to feel overwhelmed, keep these five guiding principles in mind.

1. Think About the Bigger Picture: Has your industry been affected by changing trends, technology or competitive forces? Has your talent landscape changed? How about the way you need to execute business? Chances are you answered yes to more than one, if not all of those questions. Businesses need to look ahead, as well as at industries to the left and right, to find new ways to stay relevant. If your organization is changing, ask yourself what outside forces may be challenging your business model and how your leadership may be positioning your team for something better.

2. Shed Some Old: Once you’ve heard the new strategies and really digested what they mean, you start to become more understanding of the “why.” It can still be overwhelming, however, due to the work organizational change can create. Start by assessing the current workload and break it into one of four buckets:

• STOP: It no longer provides the value it once did. With leadership support, stop doing it.
• TRANSITION: It likely needs to happen, yet you may not be the best person — reassign it.
• REDEFINE: It needs to happen, it falls under your influence, but there is an easier or more streamlined way to do it — redefine it.
• OWN IT: It’s the one most important thing you can do to make IMPACT for your organization — own it. At Faith, we’ve adopted the One Thing mindset.

3. Prioritize: After ensuring all of the things on your radar belong there, assess what is left and prioritize. Whether by strategy, impact or other forces of the organization, put those most important tasks at the top through time blocking, reoccurring meetings and/or project check-ins to ensure you set your project up for scope, budget and execution success.

4. Manage Expectations: Hurdles happen; even roadblocks. Proactively manage expectations with your team and your leaders to ensure full transparency of what is expected and what is within your circle of influence. When in doubt and expectations start to feel as though they are getting out of hand, resort to shed some old. If everything is important, nothing is important, so whether you are a leader or individual contributor, take the time to recalibrate when needed.

5. Ask: When all else fails or you still feel unclear, the best way to clear up any hesitations for yourself or for those around you is to ask. More often than not, those questions have already been considered, if not already asked. Your professionalism to seek understanding, rather than make assumptions, will help everyone around you celebrate the new direction.

Rapid growth can feel disjointed and uncomfortable, but if you follow the tips above and approach organizational repositioning with an appreciation of the new, you will really start to see the art and the strategy of what could be the next big thing.

For more on proactive change and how Faith Technologies is Redefining What’s Possible, check out Insight Magazine’s April 2019 issue or video featuring our CEO, Mike Jansen, talking about transformation.