Frequent organizational changes lead to thrashing. This is often underestimated by senior leaders in large organizations.

"Thrashing" is a computer science term that describes an overloaded system with processes constantly paging memory in and out, and being interrupted before they are able to make progress on their task.

The human equivalent of paging are the first 3 of Tuckman's stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing. Every time you make an org change, a team restarts in Forming.

https://agilescrumguide.com/blog/files/Use-Tuckmans-Model-of-Team-Dynamics.html

Forming, Storming, and Norming are like paging in memory. They take time.

Senior leaders often make two mistakes:

(1) They think that Forming, Storming, and Norming are free. Like swapping in from a hard drive, they are not.
(2) They see signs of Storming, which is a completely normal process, and view it negatively.

They then "take action" by doing another reorg.

(There's also a subcase of (1) where new leaders think they can skip Forming, Storming, and Norming. They promise continuity: "Things are working great, keep doing them." But it's human nature that new leaders will want to make changes.

A few weeks later, you're "doing a comprehensive review of our investments" or "zero-based budgeting." If not immediately, this happens when the first problems are uncovered. Then a reorg.)

In either case, "taking action" by doing a reorg before the previous reorg is complete leads to Forming, Storming, and Norming restarting. At this point, the org hasn't produced anything in months. Thus, thrashing.

How to avoid thrashing:
(1) Often you don't need a reorg, you to finish Storming.
(2) Make just one well-considered org change.
(3) Expect Storming to happen as part of the process.
(4) Be patient during Forming, Norming, and Storming. There are no shortcuts to Performing.