The Need For Organizational Structures That Evolve

All company organization structures suck, if you are trying to do the wrong things with them.

So how do you make them suck less if you are restructuring, reorganizing or building? In leadership, start by thinking about a few questions:

• Who are your top people, and what are they great at? What do they want to be? (Your org must build around your strongest people)

  • Miles Thomas gave some pushback on this point, saying “Not sure I entirely agree about designing org around strongest people. For sure, fit-gap the strongest people to the priorities, but no point to force a strong square peg into a critical round hole. Then the decision has to be how to usefully retain and grow the strong square peg to have them ready for your next critical square hole need, or exit them with good graces (maybe to a charity/social secondment, further education, certainly via a great alumni programme).”

  • I agree - you need to fit the org directionally. Sometimes you are with a strong junior person with potential. sometimes your strongest person doesn't fit your biggest needs and it creates an "odd person out" situation where you either need that person to change or you need to bring in someone new who matches the rest of your organizational vision. You can't do anything cookie-cutter.

• What are the top priorities of the business that cannot fail in the next 12-18 months? (You must be able to "see" your priorities in your organization clearly)

• Are your strongest people on your most important priorities? (If there is a gap, you don't want it to be on your top priorities). If you are an organization that serves other parts of the company, does each team have a clear business stakeholder in another group?

• Are your weakest teams in areas that are less critical to the company from a growth, revenue, or profitability point of view? (An organization can never be equally strong everywhere)

I confess to be an organization tinkerer. I think at least 20% of your organization you should change in some way every 12 months in response to changing market dynamics and priorities. Keep the core intact for the long-term mission but add and subtract around the edges as new opportunities arise.

I got my real start designing orgs right after the 2008 financial crisis. I was responsible for a large team which had to execute multiple rounds of layoffs unfortunately. I agonized over it for weeks, but I learned so much from the experience that I still draw on today.