There is something compelling about a clean sheet of paper. A white board wiped clear.

I was reflecting on this during this morning’s meditation. And then catching myself, gently nudging, “Writing, writing” the way others whisper “thinking, thinking” as an acknowledgement and a way of bringing myself back to the task at hand, which is wiping that slate clean, letting it empty so I can see new ideas and thoughts there afterwards.

Last year, I led a “blank sheet” exercise with an executive team.

Organizational Design often starts with the best of intentions, clean and neat little boxes on a page. But post-execution, it branches off – someone says they’re too busy and need help (too busy doing what, maybe we need to look at that instead?). Or you implement a new platform and need someone to maintain it. Or you worry that someone is going to leave and hire to bring a replacement up to speed and then the first person doesn’t leave. Or an executive says, I can achieve this if we just build out a team…

And suddenly the neat little boxes aren’t neat anymore.

So then you need a blank sheet exercise.

In this case, I gave each executive leader a blank flip chart sheet and a pad of sticky-notes. They designed a new org chart for their are, using one sticky note for each role. Role, not person, because we become attached to people; at this point, leave the people out of the equation, so it remains abstract.

Then each leader walked their peers through their flip chart and the peers asked questions, pushed back. Sometimes we moved sticky notes around on the flip chart. Sometimes we moved them to a different flip chart altogether. Where should a Website Product Manager live? In Marketing? Or with the other Product Managers in Technology? And why should the PMs live in Technology anyway.

Some teams disappeared, other teams emerged.

When we had finally settled on what we needed to run the company, the hard part began. Now each leader had to identify the 2-3 skills each role required and then evaluate the skills of the people in their current pool – did they have a person with those skills to fill that role? Was there someone with transferrable skills elsewhere in the organization? Was there someone who, with a little training or mentoring could pick up those skills? Where would we need to hire? And, the really hard question, what about the people left standing when this game of musical chairs ended?

Sometimes a blank sheet is unforgiving.

And then the financial calculations. Where we were building out new teams, how quickly did we need to build them out? Did we need to build them in order to generate the business? Or were they triggered by a ramp in the business (once we hit $3M, we’ll need another person)? If we needed to hire someone to fill a role that required skills that no one on the team had, how much would that increase the payroll?

You can do this exercise with technical platforms, too.

Systems decisions, like people decisions, often start off organized neatly, but then Marketing doesn’t like JIRA but IT has JIRA integrated with GitHub and suddenly you have two project management platforms – or three, if you want to count the one that the Sales Manager uses for their team, the one they brought from their past life.

So again, a blank sheet. What technology do we need to run this organization? And based on that, where do we need to eliminate duplication? Where can we downgrade from the Lexus version to a Prius or a VW? And how many seats do we really need on these platforms?

And perhaps for products.

Who are our customers? Are these products serving those customers, distinctly? What are the customers telling us? Are they confused between products?

Are these products delivered as efficiently as possible? Are there any features that would make them more marketable?

What untapped markets are emerging and what new products could serve those markets?

And what products are ready for retirement?

Starting with a blank sheet can reveal hidden gaps or redundancies.

You may not be able to implement all this change in one fell swoop

Unless you have a burning platform, you may want to ease into the transformation to avoid morale issues that impact productivity.

But just the exercise of starting with a blank sheet can cause you to look at your organization with fresh eyes.

Like a meditation, clearing your mind for the day ahead.

Or the clarity of a morning sky.