Here’s another great quote I came across in Peter Drucker’s Nonprofit Management book:
Decisions always involve risk taking. And effective decisions take a lot of time and thought. For this reason, one doesn’t make unnecessary decision. Again and again, non-profit institutions go through a painful reorganization, moving staff and activities around because two people are feuding with one another. But they have been feuding for twenty years and will keep on feuding whatever the organization structure. Leave them alone. (pp. 122-23)
Okay, I wouldn’t just leave them alone, but I agree restructuring (or even firing) is not going to solve the problem. He makes several good points about how we place emphasis on the wrong thing, or end up solving the wrong problem. When you have to make an organizational decision, make sure you can articulate clearly what the REAL decision is. If the decision is really about the two people who are feuding, then admit that and work with those two people, instead of putting everyone else through a reorg.