What Efficiency Actually Looks Like
Cut ten people from a team and the approval chain still takes four days, because the approval chain was never about headcount. It's about a process someone built in 2015 that nobody's owned since. The bottleneck is the missing decision-maker, not a missing person.
Removing people who weren't causing the friction doesn't remove the friction. It just means fewer people managing the same amount of it.
Restructuring Like It's 1996
Lewin's refreeze model was written in 1947. Kotter's eight steps appeared in 1995. Prosci's ADKAR in 1998. All three are still the dominant frameworks used in organisations today. In 2026. The tools haven't changed. The world has.
Five Common Mistakes Leaders Make During Restructures
Waiting to communicate until the proposal is ready? Managers avoid one-on-one conversations? Disappearing into planning meetings? These are predictable patterns that emerge when leaders treat restructures as purely structural exercises. The psychological impact gets ignored. Here's what research and NZ case law say you should do instead.