Rebuilding Trust After Reorganization at a Federal Health Agency

A major federal health agency had just completed its largest reorganization in a decade. Twelve directorates were restructured, reporting lines shifted, and long-standing teams were dispersed across new divisions. Senior leaders — many of them career civil servants with decades of expertise — found themselves navigating unfamiliar terrain without the relationships or context they had always relied on.

Within weeks, the symptoms were everywhere: decisions stalled, meetings ballooned, and escalation replaced collaboration. Leaders described feeling isolated, second-guessed, and unable to get a clear read on where their authority ended and someone else's began. Staff engagement scores dropped sharply, and the agency risked losing institutional knowledge as frustrated senior leaders quietly explored retirement.

By the end of the engagement, decision-making velocity had returned to pre-reorganization levels, and in several directorates had exceeded it. Leaders reported feeling grounded in their new roles and, more importantly, connected to each other as a functioning leadership team. Staff engagement scores recovered and then climbed past their previous highs.

The deeper transformation was cultural. Directorate leads began modeling the kind of direct, trust-based collaboration they had experienced in their cohort sessions, and that modeling cascaded down through their teams. The agency kept the institutional knowledge it was at risk of losing — every leader originally considering early retirement chose to stay.