This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Ben Link
Every day I’m shufflin’ 
On my 10th anniversary with a previous employer, I counted it up:
- I had reported to eight different managers.
- I had been seated at thirteen different desks.
I briefly wondered if I misunderstood the business, and we were really just there to subsidize office-mover companies. Man, we sure loved to reorganize.
But that was ALL of us 
Zoom that out a sec – now I’ve got hundreds, even thousands of employees having a similar experience.
…spending 
money because we have to pay the movers to come in and move this person from this cubicle to that cubicle (hilariously, I once experienced this as part of a reorg that moved me LITERALLY to the next cube over; less than 5 meters away)
…losing 
productivity with every move because of the downtime during the act of moving.
…losing 
focus because the org chart keeps changing and I can’t remember who reports to whom and which team is responsible for xyz now.
…losing 
comfort and psychological safety because I just got used to working closely with one manager and now 
I have to start over and build a relationship with someone new. (Ok, I get this one can work both ways and you quickly get away from the crappy managers but still…)
Why this is a Thing®
Leaders often feel pressure to do something to prove their impact. They just joined the organization (or got promoted into a role with expanded influence) and they feel the need to exert that influence quickly…
- Maybe they want to justify the price tag of hiring/promoting them.
- Maybe they’re feeling flush with influence and authority and just want to make their mark on things.
- Maybe they’ve had some long-standing beef with the prior tenant in this role and are looking to fix something they think was horribly broken.
Or maybe they’ve been in the role a while now, and they’re dealing with different pressures:
- Performance review is coming up: I need to make a big splash and go for a raise/promotion!
- I saw that Bob over in Accounting did a reorg and his numbers changed dramatically; I should shake things up around here!
Regardless of the reason, they look around and of the options within their influence, they perceive that the easiest lever to pull on is structure: new roles, new teams, new priorities.
Mission Failed Successfully 
…So we reorg. (and we probably declare its massive success wayyyyyy too prematurely, because who cares if we wrecked everything, we met our implementation timeline for reorganizing!)
Not all change is improvement, though: overcorrecting undermines high-functioning teams. Too often, our framing of the reorg concept fails to account for the hidden costs of disruption of the entire organization’s routine.
A little psychology lesson 
As it turns out, we can give names to the factors that are in play in this continual need to reorganize:
Visibility bias: “Doing nothing” isn’t visible leadership. When we don’t feel like a leader is visible, we might start to question whether we need to spend money to have them lead. And that puts their role in jeopardy…
Hero complex: Leaders feel responsible to fix things. And if there’s nothing to fix… well, we might have to invent something!
Survivorship bias: People who make big changes are often celebrated. The steady hands who provide consistency and clarity without disruption? Forgotten.
What’s the worst that could happen
We’ve hinted already at some of the costs of this constant, churning change-for-change’s-sake mentality, but just to collect a few here:
Decreased psychological safety. Humans need at least a little bit of routine in their lives. They can go without that stability for short periods, but it’s extremely taxing. The VP constantly rearranging the team is a direct path to Burnout… possibly at scale.
Increased confusion about roles, goals, and processes. Who’s responsible for this task again? When the org chart keeps changing, the answer becomes we don’t know… and when we don’t know, we often stop doing it altogether.
Wasted time on reorientation instead of actual work. You’re likely already slipping deadlines. Do you really want to make that worse while everyone adjusts?
Broken working systems for the sake of appearances. Many of the reasons for change we’ve talked about boil down to helping an executive justify their own existence. Did you just actively harm the organization for the sake of your own ego?
The Only Winning Move is Not To Play
What if the right answer was there in front of us, all along? Maybe the boldest move you can make is…
Nothing.
Want to be thought of as a great leader? Practice discernment.
Want your team to perform better/faster? Build Trust and Consistency.
Practical Steps Forward
Maybe you’re a leader who’s becoming self-aware enough to realize that you might resemble these remarks. What do you do differently to get out of the bad habits?
Audit your motives before initiating change. You might need outside help to do this; ideally, seek out someone on your team who feels comfortable enough to “give it to you straight”. You probably won’t be able to do that in the office though – meet them for lunch, help them lower their guard. Let them know it’s safe and that you’re genuine about seeking their feedback. And then act on it – they’ll stop helping you if you listen to them and then ignore everything!
Measure impact, not motion. We talked about this a while back in I’m “Remote”, not “Disengaged”… measure outcomes rather than outputs. Was everyone scurrying around being busy? Not important. Were they able to be more effective? THAT’s what you want to know.
Reward consistency, not just novelty. Even as it’s hard for you to personally break the habit, help the leaders under you to start working on it too. Show them you care about the reliable as much as you enjoy the novel. Take care not to expect them to always make a splash!
What if, on the other hand, you’re NOT a leader? How can you be part of the solution?
Learn to ask, “What problem is this solving?”. Challenging your leadership to explain themselves, respectfully but thoughtfully, can help them find when they’re falling into bad habits.
Advocate for focus. Highlight organizational decisions that feel “a little ADHD”… when things get a little too reactive and we need to step back.
Share wins from continuity, not just reinvention. I struggle with this one too- I love being the inventor, the architect of the change that saved us huge money or sped up a process by 100x. But the rewards for consistent, reliable service are just as worthy of celebrating as those revolutionary moves!
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Ben Link