Restructuring with heart
A member-owned cooperative, built over the years from several historically independent business units, faced mounting sector pressure — rising costs and staff shortages — that made continued fragmentation unsustainable. A formal restructuring process, including works-council consultation, reduced the size of the leadership team and closed a number of roles. People who stayed carried a real mix of grief, anger, and relief.
Could a leadership team that had operated as separate islands, with an informal shadow hierarchy and a habit of avoiding conflict, become one team with one voice and one agenda? And underneath that: the leadership itself raised a harder question — is becoming “one organization” really the goal, or just the means to protect what the organization exists for, its members and its craft?
“Real progress starts when a leadership team dares to name what is holding it back.”
We opened with a twenty-four hour offsite to let the team land together after the restructuring, before starting a phased leadership journey. A systemic diagnostic assessed both the rational side of change — strategy, structure, execution — and the emotional side — team ambition, culture health, connection with employees — giving the team an honest, shared starting point. From there, team-effectiveness work and structured “case for change” storytelling helped leaders build a narrative they could actually stand behind and take into their own broader leadership offsites.
The diagnostic gave the team an honest picture of where it stood — strongest on ambition, weakest on culture health and structural clarity — and the opening offsite already produced a visible shift toward more openness and fewer walls between business units. Just as tellingly, the leadership team named its own barriers out loud: conflict avoidance, a shadow hierarchy, and a self-image that had been resisting a genuine performance culture. The engagement continues; naming those barriers is itself an early marker of progress, ahead of measurable business results.
LQ team
Managing Partner
Founding partner - Director Research & Thought Leadership