A senior manager has a variety of skills that should be honed if he or she is to be an excellent manager. The skills mentioned in this Experteer article highlight some of the most important aspects of top managers that need to be developed over the course of a career, and these skills are all the more important during times of corporate restructuring.
Significant research has been done on how to restructure your company, including a book entitled Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring: Case Studies in Bankruptcies, Buyouts, and Breakups, written by Harvard Business School professor Stuart C. Gilson, and senior managers faced with this difficult task would do well to read the words of wisdom found in this book and others like it.
Here you will find a brief overview what you need to take into account when determining how to restructure your company.
An Overview of How to Restructure Your Company
- Determine the changes your company has gone through recently. Perhaps the company is considering a merger with another, or wants to drastically streamline business processes to increase profitability. See just what changes have led to the need for restructuring so that you are better able to determine how to restructure your company in a meaningful, effective way.
-
List all of the functions and divisions in your company as well as what each one is responsible for. In the process you may find redundancies, and you will also figure out which of these functions and divisions are essential to your company’s success.
This process should include the names of the people carrying out the functions, which will also help you determine not just which functions, but also which team members need to be included in the restructuring.
-
Discuss the restructuring with your team members. Transparency is key to a smooth restructuring, and being open and honest with your team helps you out in two ways: first, you are level with everyone, including those who many not have a job after the restructuring.
Second, your team can also be a great source of inspiration and can come up with ideas that you might not have thought of. The only way for them to share their ideas is if you are honest about the ongoing process of restructuring.
-
Be decisive. Admittedly, restructuring your company can be quite the ordeal. Nevertheless, when you need to make a decision, make it. Talk to your team, consult other members of management, and seek advice from outside if this is appropriate or useful, but ultimately a decision needs to be made.
Otherwise, you remain in a state of limbo that could prove far worse to your company’s long-term success than a poor decision.
- Be flexible. Once you’ve made a decision, ask for feedback on how things are working-or if they are even working. If you determine that a decision you made turned out to be a wrong one, be open to making changes. After all, it is an ongoing process, and there are bound to be speed bumps along the way.
-
Be aware of how you approach your employees. Whether you are delivering good new or bad news, remember that your employees are the backbone of your company.
Without them, how you restructure your company won’t matter, so be sure you approach them in an open, positive manner.
Naturally, the reasons why you decide to restructure will differ from company to company, but if you adhere to these basic concepts while also focusing on the specifics of your situation, you will find that everyone involved – in particular the company – will come out ahead.
In the end, decide how to restructure your company based on the company’s needs, and your company – and thus you and your employees – will emerge stronger than before.
