This past week I spend a couple days off-site in management meetings learning about our refreshed organizational strategy and our reorganization plans to support that strategy. My takeaways from our workshop?
- organizational change is never easy.
- some people struggle with it much more than others.
- honesty throughout this process is critical.
- transparency during this process is essential.
- support to help individuals through this transition is a necessity.
- uncertainty is a fact.
- nobody knows all the plans or has all the answers.
I’m very optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead for our organization, excited in many ways actually, but at the same time the ambiguity is a tad unnerving. What are your thoughts on reorganizations? If you’ve experienced a few like I have, was the outcome a positive experience for you?
Hopefully next week I’ll get back to my regular blogpost schedule after a light week this week. If you missed my May 2013 Dividend Income Update, well, here is the link. Later this summer, I hope to be about 25% to my dividend income retirement goal. I’m hopeful July will be the month that will happen.
I have a bunch of reader questions in my inbox to respond to (thanks for your questions folks) and I’ll do my best to get back to you over the next few days.
Enjoy this Weekend Reading list.
Boomer and Echo joked about saying goodbye to dividend investing. I won’t be deviating from my strategy here.
Retire Happy said retirement is all about freedom. Agreed, and you can read my post here on that subject.
Budgets Are Sexy wondered if you’d take a 10% paycut to take Fridays off work. If I keep my job, uh, heck ya!
The Brighter Life offered some tips to take a dream vacation on a budget.
The Loonie Bin shared some great dividend income.
Give Me Back My Five Bucks asked what is your biggest weakness as an employee?
Big Cajun Man said tuition and inflation are not related.
The Dividend Guy wrote about a few stocks to consider. I agree with most selections in this list.
Financial Samurai said it’s better to invest in growth stocks over dividend stocks (for younger investors). Not sure if I agree with this thesis since total investing returns are what truly matter and no one strategy is really better than the other.
Financial Highway provided 6 strategies to protect your wealth. Tax planning was the best advice in this list.
Making Sense of Cents tried to quantify how much your pet is worth. Hard question to answer but I know we love our cat.
Dividend Growth Stock Investing bought some Wells Fargo recently (as did I) and wrote a book! I didn’t write a book but I’m looking forward to reading his.
Dozens of Financial Post readers bragged about their Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) gains recently, including this investor who now holds almost $80,000 in this account.
Kanwal Sarai wondered if you practice safe investing.
Dividend Ladder identified some Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with strong growth potential.
Bet Crooks talked about withdrawals from your Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and using some money to buy a home under the Home Buyers Plan (HBP).
My friends at H&R Block Canada remind you the self-employment tax filing deadline is coming up on June 17th and if you have any questions about self-employment income, check out www.hrbtaxtalk.ca.
Last but not least, my favourite post of the week, Money Bulldog wrote about how you can invest in whiskey. I’m not convinced this strategy would work for me. I don’t buy and hold alcohol 🙂
Thanks for the mention Mark, I really appreciate it!
I’ve never had to be a part of re-organizing, although with my new job there is a possibility. I guess I better stay a “linchpin” like Robb said!
Have a good weekend!
As a long term peon, I went through many many reorgs. We got to be able to predict them (every 3-5 years). It was a large company so the usual theme was “Let’s De-Centralize! Empower the Regions!” followed after a couple of years by “Let’s Centralize! Smash those Silos!” (A silo refers to a department/region that is entirely vertically focused and refuses to deal with the other departments/regions in the company other than to lob missiles from the safety of the silo out at the others.) Then of course there were the bonus reorgs due to (a) downsizing (b) rightsizing (c) diagonal slices and (d) corporate takeovers/takeunders.
Sigh.
Good luck with your re-org. If you work with good people that’s the most critical thing. Enjoy your relationships with them, be productive, and hope that things will stabilize into a sustainable useful structure.
And many thanks for the kind mention!
The company I work for recently went through a re-org. I, and most of my colleagues, were able to keep my job so I was happy with it. I like organizational change – I get bored easily and so it’s fun to change things up.
Organizational change is never easy but it’s quite needed and helpful in the end. Thanks for the weekend reads.
Thanks so much for the mention, I really appreciate it! Can’t believe we bagged the favourite post of the week award. I know what you mean about the potential dangers of whiskey investment, I’ve got a couple of prized bottles calling at me from the cabinet every Saturday evening, I’ve resisted until now but I’m getting weaker! Hope you have a great weekend 🙂
Hey Mark!
The problem with reorganization is definitely that most management are not transparent and honest 😉 They claim to be, but when you think about what they say and make you do, most of the time, they have an hidden agenda.
It’s all right as most employees wouldn’t understand anyway (you either have a manager perception or an employee, rarely you can understand both). But still, I wish there were most honesty in those processes 🙂
We’re going through a bit of a re-org at work after some significant budget cuts this year. The bottom line is that we’ll have to do more with less (resources and people), which is always difficult.
As long as you continue to add value to the team (be that linchpin, if you will) then it can be very positive.
Thanks very much for mentioning my late April Fool’s Day post 😉
Doing more with less is definitely a theme in our organization and I suspect if we don’t become more efficient, it will be done to us via significant budget cuts and clearing most staff including management.
Yeah, no worries about your belated April Fool’s post. Enjoy the weekend Robb!
Thanks for the inclusion, amazing how our money keeps buying less.
Painfully so and true…