Introduction: The Anatomy of Organisational Failure and Success

Imagine a high-stakes project, staffed with top talent and backed by ample resources, slowly grinding to a halt. Deadlines are missed, budgets overrun, and morale plummets. The cause is not a lack of skill but a fog of confusion. Team members unknowingly duplicate each other’s work while critical tasks fall through the cracks. Accountability becomes a phantom, impossible to grasp or assign. This scenario is not a failure of personnel; it is a fundamental failure of design.  Accountability goes beyond functional ownership and outcomes but also extends into the ‘how we work’.  Teams and individuals are also not accountable for how they show up and support one another.

The antidote to this chaos is Organisational Design, the intentional and strategic process of structuring a company to achieve its goals most effectively. It is the master blueprint for how an organisation functions, aligning its people, processes, and technology with its overarching business objectives.  

It’s not a criticism, all great leaders have focuses, blind spots, strengths and weaknesses.  Some will focus on the big picture and macro structure; big boxes of business units and a few key “industry standard” roles.  Others don’t seem to focus on any structure at all and maintain central control and ownership of all and every task.  The true leverage point for performance, agility, and resilience lies at the micro-level: the thorough definition of individual roles and responsibilities.

Beyond the Org Chart: A Modern View of Organisational Design

To appreciate the significance of role definition, one must first adopt a modern understanding of organisational design itself. It is far more than a static, one-time event of drawing charts. Instead, it is a continuous, dynamic process of aligning an organisation’s structure with its strategy and operating context. This holistic approach requires leaders to think like systems engineers, considering the interplay between structures, people, processes, culture, and skills.  And again, this may not be in a leaders’ toolkit to articulate, often it takes bringing together people skilled in their fields around a solid strategy and mission.  

Also, organisations are not static machines but complex, living organisms that are constantly evolving, demanding a design that is inherently flexible and adaptable.  Sure, there is a solid first push required to put documents, processes and tools in place, but I’ve also worked with CEOs that aren’t thinking about the regular rhythm that is required for Organisational Design maintenance.

Core Principles of Effective Design

Effective organisational design is guided by a set of fundamental principles that ensure the structure serves the business, not the other way around.

• Strategic Alignment: The organisational structure must be a direct enabler of the business strategy, ensuring that every department, team, and role contributes meaningfully to strategic goals.  There is complexity and overlap in Role definition into performance systems which no doubt I will get into in future.

• Accountability and Clarity: The design must create unambiguous lines of authority and responsibility. Every individual should know what is expected of them, who they report to, and how their performance is measured.

• Coordination and Communication: An effective structure facilitates the smooth, efficient flow of information and resources across the organisation. It actively works to break down silos and prevent the bottlenecks that stifle progress.

• Flexibility and Simplicity: It doesn’t need to be complex, the balance between clarity and division, flexibility and simplicity.  A focus on simplicity will reduce the number of interfaces or divisions of responsibility and information.  The fewer of these mean the less to define and less for people to need to be across.   There is huge value in a top down approach, stopping when people feel teams, roles and responsibilities are clear.

The “Hard” and the “Soft”

A common pitfall in organisational design is focusing exclusively on the objective elements while ignoring the less tangible, subjective and soft ones.  In terms of role definition, a good design encapsulates the what and the how, drawing down from strategy, mission statements and company values – all tracked into individual role descriptions and KPIs.  We can also look to extend these into DEI and other cultural enhancement tangibles for teams and individuals in lots of ways.  It may be at this point we also start to see Organisational Design shaping recruitment process and into areas like onboarding.

• Organisational Hard refers to the formal, codified aspects of the company: the structures, processes, technology, and governance systems. This is the org chart, the reporting lines, and the documented workflows.

• Organisational Soft encompasses the informal, human elements: the company’s values, cultural norms, leadership styles, and the collective skills and aspirations of its employees.

Personally, I’d also suggest that we can shift to thinking about these Hard and Soft elements together.   Earlier I mentioned the tendency to only focus on the high level without the detail,  a compounding problem is a mindset that Hard skills and definition is the key and only needs soft aspects to support achieving it.   I’ll remind you of an old saying I hold as key in my own recruitment – ‘you can teach skills, but you can’t teach passion and core personality’.  We still tend to apply soft elements after the fact when really the soft skills and measures are perhaps the most important to lead and drive outcomes.

At this point you may also be looking for initiatives that enhance or re-shape culture.  How and where culture plays a role in Organisational Design can be confusing,  many practitioners approach culture change as something that will occur naturally once good Organisational Design is in place.  Personally I feel it is a large enough area to almost sit alongside, and depending on the company it may become a larger focus over Organisational Design activities.

Deconstructing Role Definition

If organisational design is the blueprint, then the individual role is the primary building block. Its integrity determines the strength of the entire structure. Role definition is the process of outlining the responsibilities, tasks, authorities, and accountabilities associated with a particular position, thereby providing clarity and establishing clear boundaries for every member of the organisation.  Autonomy, accountability, clear contribution, purpose, sense of achievement and self-actualisation are all outcomes of clear role definition.

The Anatomy of a Role

A well-constructed role has several distinct components that work together to provide a comprehensive picture of expectations.  Note that some of these will exist in Role Descriptions, some in Processes and Policy and others in more flexible performance tools or artefacts.

• Responsibilities: These are the high-level outcomes for which a person in a specific role is held accountable. For example, ‘Drive increased sales in X Sector for both new and existing clients.’

• Duties/Tasks: These are the specific, tangible actions an employee must perform to fulfill their responsibilities. To meet the responsibility above, a duty might be to “adhere to the company Sales process for account planning and client relationship management”.

• Skills & Competencies: These are the capabilities, knowledge, and qualifications an individual must possess to execute their duties properly, such as the skill to “10 years of direct B2B sales in the Cloud Services”.

• Authority & Decision Rights: This component clarifies the scope of an individual’s decision-making power. It answers the critical question: “What decisions can this role holder make independently, and when do they need to seek approval?”.

• KPIs:  What will this person be measured by that defines success

Sources of Role Definition

To conclude, the last key start to role definition is about source.  This is a complexity I see a lot of businesses struggle with because there are a few lenses we need to look firmly through in order to extract what is required for each role.  Also keep in mind that everything mentioned here is also part of Organisational Design and would have its own activities associated.

• Functional and Process Accountability: This lens and allocation is a critical first step.  It won’t necessarily track directly into role descriptions beyond your senior leaders and executive, but establishing a view that originates from these views will assist you with coverage and solid accountability allocation.  E.g. Who owns HR.

• Company Strategy: This will shape the orientation and focus of your Organisational Design.  If R&D and IP ownership is a major strategy focus then it would be natural to find it being its own department or sole focus/ownership for someone in your organisation.

• Company Goals (short and mid term): It is standard practice for many organisations to break down the big picture into mid and short term goals.   The time periods for these are general what makes sense for the business.  These goals form a very important source of responsibilities, duties and KPIs at company, team and individual levels.

• Industry: Industry standard titles and wording helps everyone with clarity.  It helps all the way from job ads and hiring the right people, through to colleagues understanding what each other are doing in a general sense when engaging each other.  Equally, applying standard job titles to roles that have zero definition or responsibility can cause confusion, frustration and ultimately damage with misaligned expectations, unclear authority or duties etc.  We also find some good tangible metrics/KPIs across industry disciplines as well, such as client satisfaction scores.

• Values: How do we work internally and with clients.  This can be a challenge to get into words but as long as it can be measured or asked of someone during feedback then it could be valuable for influencing focus and expectations of roles.   Some leaders I’ve worked with have felt very strongly about business attire and so business suit and tie found its way into role definition for anything client facing.

• Regulations and Legislation: Often there may be technical requirements which need to be maintained. Perhaps qualification currency etc.

• Growth Expectations: Sometimes this can be a discussion point and businesses vary on who they feel is responsible for growth and learning.  Personally I like a joint commitment approach and many businesses agree that without a focus on keeping employees current or ahead of industry, competitive threat can become very real.