Depending on your industry, reorgs can happen often. In my current role, I’d say around every 4.5 months. In my previous role, once a year. Reorgs come with comms plans, new org charts, new missions, new teammates and sometimes, a completely new roadmap.

Reorgs also come with mourning. Sad goodbyes. Occasional layoffs. The death deprecation of trusted Stand Ups and chat threads.

Reorgs come with uncomfortable moments when you realize people you trust will no longer watch your back. Long built relationships are abruptly ended. Hard fought alliances become relics. Trust, resets.

Unspoken in a reorg is the loss of camaraderie, the invisible scaffold that supports working with increased intensity.

Poof.

After a recent reorg, I received a flurry of “great working with you, keep in touch” messages. It struck me that thoughts generally reserved when someone leaves a company were repurposed for a move within one.

The sentiment is necessary and appreciated because, let’s face it, I may not work with my fantastic (former) teammates in the same way again. A solid group of people I’ve work with closely, planned v-teams, developed value statements, traded strategies, sung karaoke…I no longer will.

Reorgs are exciting and they do offer new opportunity. But the undertow brings sadness. (Yes, even for this cynical NYer.)

This is rarely recognized by leaders and managers because the decision backing the reorg happened long before the official announcement. What’s needed from leaders during this time is empathy and patience. Give your teams and people time to absorb the news before making deadlines about what’s to come. Recognize it’s hard to “focus on the work” when a reorg reprioritizes a lot of what people thought they would be working on. Make the landing as soft as you can. Teams and individual contributors will bounce back and start forming those new alliances again.