Reorg ready roadmap part 1: What great leaders do before the change
In today’s climate of continuous transformation, especially across manufacturing and engineering, many organizations are launching new operating models while managing significant workforce reductions. The weeks before “go live” are often the most ambiguous, yet they carry disproportionate weight in shaping how people interpret and engage with the change.
In this early stage, leadership presence sends strong signals. What executives say, how they show up, and the questions they ask all begin to shape the culture of the new organization. The challenge is that because so much is uncertain at this stage, the signals you send can get mixed up, exacerbating the problem of your team’s engagement and focus.
The reality: You’re leading before the structure is ready
This period before the reorganization goes live means leading in an abyss, before the new structure and roles are clearly defined and announced.
At this stage, your future as a leader is still in flux:
- Some leaders know their new roles but not their teams or decision rights.
- Others are being pulled into decisions for parts of the business they do not yet fully own.
- Some still do not know if or where they fit in the new organization.
- And yet all have to act.
This creates a leadership paradox. You are expected to influence outcomes in a space where your authority is informal, your team is undefined, and your context is incomplete. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to move forward successfully.
Four things great leaders do to navigate pre-organization
- Prioritize the play-by-play, not the organizational chart
When formal clarity is missing, do not wait. Focus on how to work together in the moment, and take these steps:
- Treat major tasks or decisions like individual plays. Huddle up, assign roles based on strengths, and move forward.
- Recognize that progress comes from coordinated actions, not from waiting for the full design to finalize. Keep the focus on making smaller moves, together.
- Resist solving for the whole system
As you press forward, you will notice inefficiencies and gaps. You will feel pressure to fix everything. Pause and remember:
- Now is not the time for sweeping changes. You do not yet have the full information.
- Stay focused on solving the immediate problem while keeping broader implications in view. Make notes you can come back to later when you know more.
- Be aware of the shadow you cast
In times of uncertainty, your influence is amplified. Even casual comments you make can set unintended actions in motion. As you communicate to your team, use this as a guide:
- Assume everything you say will be interpreted as direction; be intentional about what you ask people to do.
- Speak with intention, even when you are still forming your own understanding.
- Make decisions that can be revisited
Remember that most early decisions will not—and should not—be irreversible. Focus on keeping things moving, not setting the future in stone. As your guide:
- Make smart calls that can be adjusted as new information emerges.
- Aim for progress and learning, not permanence.
Three common early-stage pitfalls to avoid
Pitfall #1: Trying to fix everything at once. This fragments your focus and is impossible to achieve, while creating the risk that you will miss important smaller wins and solutions that will propel the team more successfully forward.
Pitfall #2: Applying past playbooks too quickly. What has worked before does not always work in a new and different environment. Jumping too quickly to past approaches can blind you to quick pivots you need to make now, and bring your team off course along with you.
Pitfall #3: Waiting for certainty. By nature of the “pre-reorg” fog, certainty is not going to come anytime soon. And important work still needs to get done. Getting stymied by awaiting big decisions and key direction will leave you and your teams far behind.
Key takeaways
- The “before” period is not a holding pattern. It is a critical window to shape tone, relationships, and ways of working.
- Curiosity, not control, earns early trust.
- The habits you form now will influence how others operate once the structure is in place.
Call to action: Before the reorganization
If your organization is approaching a major reorganization, ask yourself:
“What signals am I sending today, and are they building the foundation I want for tomorrow?”
If you want a downloadable version of this series, click here to get the whitepaper.
This is part of a 3 part series. Be sure to read the other two here: Part 2: What great leaders do during the change and Part 3: What great leaders do after the change
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From top-down to judgment all around: The AI imperative for organizations
Each business revolution has reshaped not only how businesses operate, but how they organize themselves and empower their people. From the industrial age to the information era, and now into the age of artificial intelligence, technology has always brought with it a reconfiguration of authority, capability, and judgment.
In the 19th century, industrialization centralized work and knowledge. The factory system required hierarchical structures where strategy, information, and decision-making were concentrated at the top. Managers at the apex made tradeoffs for the greater good of the enterprise because they were the only ones with access to the full picture.
Then came the information economy. With it came the distribution of information and a need for more agile, team-based structures. Cross-functional collaboration and customer proximity became competitive necessities. Organizations flattened, experimented with matrix models, and pushed decision-making closer to where problems were being solved. What had once been the purview of a select few, judgment, strategic tradeoffs, and insight became expected competencies for managers and team leads across the enterprise.
Now, AI is changing the game again. But this time, it’s not just about access to data. It’s about access to intelligence.
Generative AI democratizes access not only to information, but to intelligent output. That shifts the burden for humans from producing insights to evaluating them. Judgment, which was long the domain of a few executives, must now become a baseline competency for the many across the organization.
But here’s the paradox: while AI extends our capacity for intelligence, discernment, the human ability to weigh context, values, and consequence, is still best left in the hands of human leaders. As organizations begin to automate early-career work, they may inadvertently erase the very pathways and opportunities by which judgment was built.
Why judgment matters more than ever
Deloitte’s 2023 Human Capital Trends survey found that 85% of leaders believe independent decision-making is more important than ever, but only 26% say they’re ready to support it. That shortfall threatens to neutralize the very productivity gains AI promises.
If employees can’t question, challenge, or contextualize AI’s output, then intelligent tools become dangerous shortcuts. The organization stalls, not from a lack of answers, but from a lack of sense-making.
What organizations must do
To stay competitive, organizations must shift from simply adopting AI to designing AI-aware ways of working:
- Build new learning paths for judgment development. As AI replaces easily systematized tasks, companies must replace lost learning experiences with mentorship, simulations, and intentional development planning.
- Design workflows that require human input. Treat AI as a co-pilot, not an autopilot. Embed review checkpoints and tradeoff discussions. Just as innovation processes have stage gates, so should AI analyses.
- Make judgment measurable. Assess and develop decision-making under ambiguity from entry-level roles onward. Research shows the best learning strategy for this is high-fidelity simulations.
- Start earlier. Leadership development must begin far earlier in career paths, because judgment, not just knowledge, is the new differentiator.
What’s emerging is not just a flatter hierarchy, but a more distributed sense of judgment responsibility. To thrive, organizations must prepare their people not to outthink AI, but to out-judge it.
BTS acquires Nexo to strengthen its position in Brazil and Latin America
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Stockholm, May 5, 2025
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – BTS Group AB (publ), a leading global consultancy specializing in strategy execution, change, and people development, has agreed to acquire Nexo Pesquisa e Consultoria Ltda., Nexo, a boutique consulting firm headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.
Nexo has been growing continuously since it was founded in 2017. With revenues of approximately 12 million Brazilian Reales (approx. 2.1 million USD) in 2024, and a highly capable team of 21 members, Nexo has built a strong reputation for delivering transformative projects in strategy, innovation, leadership, and culture.
Nexo collaborates with a great portfolio of clients across sectors such as financial services, consumer goods, and technology, assisting both local and global companies in navigating uncertainty, unlocking creativity, and activating strategy through people. Their work encompasses culture transformation, leadership development, employer value proposition, innovation culture, and vision alignment – supported by proprietary methodologies and frameworks.
BTS currently operates in Brazil servicing both local and multinational clients with a team of 13 employees. By acquiring Nexo, BTS not only increases the Group’s footprint in Brazil but also adds significant capabilities in culture and transformation services. Nexo’s client base has limited overlap with BTS, creating strong growth potential and synergy opportunities.
“Nexo is known for helping leaders and organizations tackle some of the most complex, human-centered challenges with creativity, empathy, and strategic clarity and the Nexo team is loved by their clients,” says Philios Andreou, Deputy CEO of BTS Group and President of the Other Markets Unit. “Their products and services complement and elevate our existing offerings, especially in culture transformation, and we are thrilled to welcome the Nexo team to BTS.”
“We’re excited to join BTS. We’ve long admired BTS’s approach and unique portfolio to support large organizations and leaders in connecting strategy with culture across the organization,” says Andreas Auerbach, co founder of Nexo. “Becoming part of BTS, allows us to scale our impact and bring more value to our clients while staying true to our values and culture,” adds Mariana Lage Andrade, co-founder of Nexo.
Upon completion of the transaction, Nexo’s business and organization will merge with BTS Brazil. Nexo’s founders will assume senior management roles in the joint operation.
The acquisition includes a limited initial cash consideration. Additional purchase price considerations will be paid between 2026 and 2028, provided Nexo meets specific performance targets. A limited portion of any such additional purchase price considerations will be paid in newly issued BTS shares. The transaction is effective immediately.
BTS’s acquisition strategy continues to focus on broadening our service portfolio, expanding our geographic reach, and enhancing our capabilities to support future organic growth in a fragmented market.
For more information, please contact:
Philios Andreou
Deputy CEO
BTS Group AB
philios.andreou@bts.com
Michael Wallin
Head of investor relations
BTS Group AB
michael.wallin@bts.com
+46-8-587 070 02
+46-708-78 80 19
High-performing teaming
Work today is too complex for individuals to succeed in isolation. Almost every critical decision, innovation, or transformation depends on teams working effectively together. Leaders rely on their teams to deliver results. Teams, in turn, rely on their leaders to create the conditions where performance is possible. This exchange, what leaders need from their teams, and what teams need from their leaders, sits at the heart of what we call teaming.
When teaming is strong, leaders get what they need from their teams [creativity, resilience, execution] and teams get what they need from leaders [direction, support, and the conditions to thrive]. It’s how strategy becomes action, how uncertainty becomes opportunity, and how businesses stay competitive in a fast-changing world.