How strategic thinking can help you get through a restructure

Restructures are just 'ugh'. They are draining, heartbreaking, and a black hole for energy, motivation and flow. Limited resources, shifting priorities, and impacts on people you care about.

Image Credit: Jackson Simmer@Unsplash

I won't promise that strategic thinking will be a silver bullet to make all the pain go away, but having frameworks to guide your thinking and shape how you show up will allow you to navigate the ugly realities with intention. Strategic thinking is far more than a framework though - the framework is just the tool - it's YOU that still has to do the thinking, and it's YOU who is the thinker behind the thinking.

Courage and compassion

A restructure is, at its core, a business decision made to protect the long-term viability of the organisation. Strategic thinkers can't get away from the need for courage. Even strategy in the best of times require choices that may feel tough, ambiguous, or imperfect. When it comes to restructures, the need for courage is thrust upon you as a non-negotiable.

Courage, however, doesn’t preclude compassion. You can separate what’s best for the organisation from what’s best for individuals and still treat people with respect. A helpful way to hold the tension:

• Courage guides decisions. Be clear, timely, and decisive.

• Compassion guides process. Be transparent, humane, and fair.

Strategic leadership sits in that balance. Your responsibility is to steer towards what the organisation needs — and to handle the process in a way that preserves dignity and trust.

And it still won't feel easy!

Make the best call available

Strategic thinking often means choosing between options where none is wholly “right”. Restructures are a prime example. The aim is to make the best available decision with the information you have, then own it.

To do that well, ground your judgement in a few anchors:

• Who you are as an organisation. Re‑articulate the purpose, values, and distinct advantages you intend to protect.

• What has changed — and what hasn’t. A restructure doesn’t always change the fundamentals of who you are, but it may reshape your mission, and it will almost certainly create the need to reshape your goals and your strategy to match the new size and competencies of the organisation.

• What matters most now. Define the outcomes that must be achieved in the next phase — they have almost certainly changed. Be explicit about both the immediate horizon and the longer term.

• What’s realistic post‑restructure. Adjust ambitions and plans to match the capacity, skills, and structures you actually have. Being realistic is critical; people don’t need a purpose stuck in the past or goals that feel like mountains they can’t climb without their former colleagues.

• What the context demands. Factor in market conditions, customers’ needs, and the human reality that people may feel wounded, blindsided, or wary of more change. Expect lower focus and productivity for a period; plan accordingly.

Clarity on these points shortens debate, sharpens trade‑offs, and gives your team a clear rationale for why certain choices are being made.

Be clear on what matters now

Prioritisation is not a spreadsheet exercise; it’s a leadership act. Once you’ve clarified identity, outcomes, feasibility, and context, translate that into a small set of commitments:

• What we will do first (and why)

• What we will pause (and for how long)

• What we will stop (and how we’ll close it well)

• What we will monitor (and the signals that trigger a change)

Write these down. Share them. Revisit them as information changes. Consistency here builds confidence even when the news isn’t easy.

Strategy meets leadership

Strategic thinking is necessary, but not sufficient. Thinking is selecting a deliberately chosen direction; leading is bringing people with you. People don’t absorb strategy via slides — they absorb it through the way you show up after the slides are presented.

A few practical behaviours that help:

• Name the trade‑offs. Explain what you chose, what you didn’t, and the criteria you used and tensions you balanced - then keep modelling that balance.

• Set expectations on pace. Acknowledge that performance may dip and define what “good” looks like for the next few weeks and months.

• Create feedback loops. Short, regular check‑ins to surface risks, remove blockers, and adjust course.

• Model calm and curiosity. Your tone sets the temperature. Ask questions that help people make sense of the new reality.

If the restructure happened to you

Sometimes the restructure is done to you or your team, and you’re left to pick up the pieces. The strategic work is the same, just closer to the ground: understand your new context and set a course that’s realistic.

• Update your map. What’s changed in mandate, scope, headcount, skills, stakeholders, organisational competencies? What stayed the same?

• Re‑test assumptions. Which plans were built on resources you no longer have? Where are the non‑negotiables?

• Adapt the strategy. Tighten focus to the few moves that still create outsized impact. Sequence the rest.

• Use curiosity deliberately. Ask more than you tell. The answers will reveal constraints and opportunities you might miss otherwise.

Closing thought

Restructures will never feel easy. Strategic thinking won’t remove the discomfort, but it will give you a way to move through it with clarity. Be brave in the decisions. Be kind in the process. And keep people oriented to what matters most, now and next.

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