“Restructuring is a team sport.”

This observation from a recent article by Dr Dogan captures a truth that many organisations overlook: designing a new operating model is only the beginning. The success of a restructure ultimately depends on whether the right people—with the right capabilities, potential and behaviours—are placed in the right roles.

Dr Dogan proposes the 4L Matrix, a competence–potential framework that assesses employees through two questions:

1. Do they have the skills required for current and future roles?
2. Do they have the willingness and ability to learn and develop?

The framework classifies employees into four categories:

• Leaders: High competence and high potential
• Learners: Lower current competence but high potential
• Loungers: High competence but low potential or willingness to develop
• Losers: Low competence and low potential

The labels may sound blunt, and human beings are undoubtedly more complex than four boxes. However, the underlying principle is valuable: organisations need an objective and consistent way to distinguish current performance from future potential.

Each category requires a different response. Leaders should be entrusted with critical responsibilities and prepared for broader roles. Learners need investment, coaching and opportunities to grow. Loungers may still possess valuable institutional knowledge and technical expertise, but they need to be managed carefully and challenged to adapt. Persistent low performance must be addressed fairly, transparently and decisively.

This assessment is especially important during restructuring.

Where many restructures go wrong

Most restructures concentrate on the mechanics of organisational design:

• Designing the operating model
• Drawing the organisational structure
• Defining reporting lines
• Identifying leadership positions
• Populating the new organogram

The organisation may emerge with new business units, new titles and redesigned spans of control. But beneath the new structure, the old power arrangements often remain intact.

People who have survived successive restructures through skilful political manoeuvring are appointed to influential positions again. Others are brought in because of their affiliation with the incoming leadership. These patterns are then repeated at successive levels as each newly appointed leader surrounds themselves with familiar and loyal people.

Too little attention is paid to the actual requirements of each role, the capabilities needed to deliver the new strategy or the suitability of the individuals being appointed.

The result is a new structure populated through old habits.

It is understandable that a leader entering a demanding role would want to be surrounded by people they know and trust. New leaders are often under enormous pressure to demonstrate progress quickly. Failure can carry a high cost for their careers and reputations. They therefore seek colleagues who understand their vision, know their working style and can execute without a lengthy period of adjustment.

Trust matters—but trust and competence are not interchangeable.

Familiarity should not become the primary qualification for appointment. Personal loyalty should not outweigh capability, integrity, adaptability and alignment with the organisation’s purpose.

Nepotism is organisational poison

Nepotism and cronyism may initially create the appearance of cohesion. Decisions are made quickly because the people around the table know one another. There is less challenge, less disagreement and greater apparent alignment.

But this comfort comes at a cost.

When leaders appoint people primarily because of personal relationships or political allegiance, the organisation gradually loses capability. Strong performers disengage when they realise that merit does not determine opportunity. Employees stop offering honest opinions because they know that challenging an insider may carry consequences. Innovation declines as conformity becomes safer than independent thinking.

The organisation also loses access to diverse perspectives. Decisions become concentrated within a trusted circle whose members may share the same assumptions and protect one another from accountability.

Over time, the effects become visible:

• Critical roles are filled by people who cannot meet their demands.
• High-potential employees leave or emotionally withdraw.
• Political skill is rewarded more consistently than delivery.
• Poor performance is tolerated when the individual has powerful sponsors.
• Employees learn that relationships matter more than results.
• The organisation repeatedly restructures without addressing the behaviours that created the original dysfunction.

Having observed the effects of repeated restructuring over many years, I have come to believe that the decline caused by nepotism is often slow but ultimately inevitable—unless the pattern is deliberately interrupted.

The organisation may continue operating. It may even produce satisfactory results for a time. But beneath the surface, institutional capability, trust and accountability are steadily eroded.

Appoint for the role—not the relationship

A credible restructuring process should begin with the work that must be done, not with the people leadership wants to accommodate.

Each role should have clearly defined outcomes, decision rights, technical requirements, leadership expectations and behavioural standards. Candidates should then be assessed consistently against those requirements.

The questions should include:

• Does this person have the competence to perform the role today?
• Do they have the potential to meet its future demands?
• Are they willing and able to learn?
• Can they lead through uncertainty and change?
• Do their behaviours build or destroy trust?
• Will they challenge constructively or merely reinforce the views of those who appointed them?
• Have they demonstrated the values expected in the new organisation?
• What evidence supports their appointment?

A competence–potential matrix can help bring greater discipline to these decisions. However, it must be applied thoughtfully. Capability assessments should not become a mechanical exercise or a convenient justification for decisions already made behind closed doors.

The quality of the framework matters, but the integrity of the process matters even more.

Design the employee experience—not only the structure

A restructure is not experienced by employees as a collection of boxes and reporting lines. It is experienced through uncertainty, conversations, decisions and perceptions of fairness.

Employees watch closely to see:

• Who receives information and who is excluded
• Who is considered for opportunities
• Whether selection criteria are applied consistently
• Whether leaders communicate honestly
• Whether concerns can be raised safely
• Whether previous performance genuinely matters
• Whether favouritism is challenged or simply repackaged
• Whether the organisation’s stated values influence decisions

These experiences determine whether employees trust the new structure.

Organisations therefore need to design the employee experience alongside the operating model. That includes transparent selection criteria, independent moderation of appointments, meaningful consultation, respectful communication, fair assessment processes and support for employees whose roles are affected.

Leaders must also consider the emotional and psychological consequences of restructuring. Even employees who retain their positions may experience uncertainty, survivor guilt, increased workloads or anxiety about the future. Ignoring these realities can undermine engagement precisely when the organisation needs commitment and discretionary effort most.

The organogram is not the organisation

A new operating model creates the possibility of change. It does not guarantee it.

If the organisation changes its structure but retains the same patronage networks, leadership behaviours and decision-making patterns, the restructure becomes an expensive rearrangement of boxes. The language changes, the titles change and the presentations change—but the underlying system remains the same.

Restructuring should be an opportunity to strengthen capability, renew trust and align talent with strategy. It should identify people who can lead today, develop those who can grow into tomorrow’s roles and address persistent gaps that weaken performance.

Most importantly, it should create an environment in which people believe that competence, potential, integrity and contribution matter more than political proximity.

Restructuring is indeed a team sport. But building the right team requires more than choosing people a leader already knows and trusts. It requires the courage to appoint for organisational success rather than personal comfort.

The real test of a restructure is not whether the new organogram looks impressive.

It is whether the organisation has built the capability, culture and employee experience necessary to deliver a different future.