3 key principles before restructure

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No matter at what level of your organization you are, you probably see there is something wrong. It can be the lack of money, the lack of managerial skills or the necessity to work in late hours. Most of the time all three of these are over your head. As with football and politics everyone has their own opinion about what is the reason behind all problems. How can one be sure that the deletion of the perceived problem won't cause another problem, hidden until that moment. If you run a small company and you suspect some of your representatives having bad time management and low results you could fire them. With this action you lose large part of your clients and have more expenses looking for new persons. There is no guarantee that they will handle the job better in the same conditions. Then, where is the problem?
If you burn your hand in the oven, you know the cause is you putting your hand there. The time-frame between these two actions is relatively small.That is why you perceive the one as a function of the other. In more complex systems like sales and companies, this is not always the case. Sales are just part of a system. If something somewhere isn't working as it should, the consequences can show themselves anywhere. It may take some time also. In the case of the small company from our example, the reason could lie in the excess of administrative work which the representatives have to take, or the wrong initial territory design. There are some variables which can be considered for sure before restructuring the department.
If sales really are a system, what conclusions can we drive from this?
1. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Which means we need to understand the whole system, not her different parts. We must look for the weakest link in our sales system and it is not always the one that is malfunctioning. This also means we should consider ourselves as part of the whole and see our function in it. Such a view will help to prevent future mistakes.
2. Uneven streams are caused by constrains. Constrains are giving the system lags in time. It resolves in times when people have nothing to do and times when they are up to their necks in work.This cause a lot of productive time thrown away and a lot of stress for everybody.
3. Restructuring is hard. When you pull a net towards you, in the minute you release it will be back in it's place. It is hard to re-arrange a whole system, when you are not sure of the consequences. Better bring some little improvements which will result in a bigger improvement for longer period.
Watch closely your system and don't put too much effort in just one place. It is good to have a balance. Use this three key principles in your work and see if they are applied in your organization. If not - you can start with them.