If in doubt, change the structure

Announcing some personnel changes today,
"The company [Dell] said the moves were part of an effort to reorganize the company around global market segments. Dell said it was reorganizing three of its four major product segments — large corporations, small and medium-size businesses, and other institutions like government — into global entities. The company said the change would allow faster development and deployment of standardized products across the world.
The company’s fourth major product group, which focuses on the consumer market, already operates globally."

Assuredly, this must have followed much deliberation and analysis, but it may also reflect the common response in business to changes in conditions: when in doubt, change the structure. If you look around the world of business, you can find any number of structural permutations, and you would probably find that there is little or no correlation between structure and success at a sector level. What does this tell us? I think we can deduce that:
- Structure is personal - it responds to a CEO's personal predispositions and the company's specific business and sociological needs at a point in time (so benchmarking probably isn't going to get you very far)
- Any given structure is less important than the act of changing structures which refocuses attention on what is being done and how (so maybe minor changes can be as effective as major disruptions?)
- The way you organize is more about the capacity and capabilities of your resources than because any given structure is particularly right (so focus on building capacity and capabilities more than on perfecting your structures).

In what will be a tough year for most companies, it may make sense to focus on multiple tweaks rather than big disruptive change and paying more attention to what our leaders are doing rather than what they are controlling.