Take, for example, the case of a global consumer packagedgoods
company that lurched down the reorganization path
in the early 1990s. (We have altered identifying details in this
and other cases that follow.) Disappointed with company
performance, senior management did what most companies
were doing at that time: They restructured. They eliminated
some layers of management and broadened spans of
control. Management-staffing costs quickly fell by 18%. Eight
years later, however, it was déjà vu. The layers had crept back
in, and spans of control had once again narrowed. In addressing
only structure, management had attacked the visible
symptoms of poor performance but not the underlying
cause – how people made decisions and how they were held
accountable.