One leader recently shared with us that every organization feels like a startup these days. We’re seeing it too. Most clients we engage with are making strategic pivots that require significant operational changes across key teams, if not the entire organization.

The problem is that most organizations aren’t structured like startups. They are running with org charts designed for a different kind of work—for the scaling and optimizing of tried-and-true programs and services that have been successful for many years.

As customer and member expectations change, the policy and regulatory landscape shifts, and funders reassess priorities, organizations are seeing a future that requires a different business model. So they are rebuilding the proverbial plane while flying it. Change at this scale and level of complexity tends to reveal staffing issues that are easy to overlook when the goal is to keep business running as usual.

Drift Happens

Drift happens in every organization. When faced with a personnel problem, we look for quick solutions to keep people happy and momentum rolling. Job responsibilities are expanded or reduced to match the capabilities of a person in a role. A position is moved under a different leader to resolve personality conflicts. Individuals are promoted based on tenure or availability because there wasn’t a well-considered succession plan in place.

These fixes appear to work in the immediate but over time, staff structure falls out of step with strategic direction and you’re left without the right people in the right positions to implement the more challenging, transformative work.

If you want to make bold changes, every position needs a fresh look, and so does the structure around it. This is the preparation that comes before any redesign. Before you touch the org chart, you need to be able to articulate why roles and responsibilities are grouped the way they are, how the staffing model directly supports the business model, and any trade-offs you may need to make and why.

Start With the Work, Not the People

Organizations tend to tie their vision of a role too closely to the people doing the work. You have to depersonalize it—this is the hardest part of restructuring any team or organization, and everyone struggles with it. Anticipating how people will react can be paralyzing; it’s often what prevents organizations from making the changes they need. Our team finds it useful to shift the conversation away from people by focusing on “the work that lands on the desk.”

We recommend getting very clear on the strategic outcome you want to achieve, the capabilities required to achieve it, and how the work should be organized before thinking about upskilling, hiring, and shifting people or teams. Step back and ask, “If this organization had to be built from scratch today, what would it need to look like to achieve the impact and influence required of our mission?”

We’ve grouped the following questions into categories that will help you get the bigger picture defined—the “why” behind the restructuring. Then you can begin to evaluate what in your current structure can be pulled forward and what needs to change. Your goal is to create a structure that can stand the test of time: one that is resilient and not dependent on finding a “unicorn” to make any role work.

Strategic Considerations

  • What gap in the field or industry is your organization uniquely positioned to fill? Where are others already addressing similar work?
  • What impact must your organization have and how will you know when you have achieved it?
  • Who do you want to influence with your work, to do what, and how will you measure whether that is successful?
  • When do you lead, and when do you collaborate with and amplify the work of others?
  • How will key stakeholders respond to changes? What will build their confidence and deepen relationships and engagement?
  • What tools are most important to deliver impact and influence? Examples could include white papers, research studies, industry benchmarking data, certifications, education, events and convenings, and network development.

Core Work and Capabilities

  • What is the core work that you want to reenvision, reorganize, or build?
  • Which elements of the core work belong together because they require related skills and experience and which combinations may create risk because they group work together in atypical ways?
  • What work requires senior judgment, external representation, or strategic leadership? Is there adequate depth of expertise on the team to allow for work to progress without delay?
  • What skills are needed to deliver the core work?
  • What expertise is best outsourced or handled by consultants?

Ownership and Decision-Making

  • Who determines priorities and how are decisions made when work spans multiple areas?
  • Which decisions should remain with executive leadership, and which should be delegated?
  • When priorities compete, how are tradeoffs made, and who makes them?
  • How will accountability for outcomes be defined and assessed across shared work?
  • How can ownership and decision rights be made clear to avoid delays and ambiguity?
  • What are the internal practices that help the team manage timelines and resolve conflicts, such as team meetings, software, and project planning tools?

Constraints

  • What are the factors that could affect the pace or sequence of any changes?
  • What is leadership’s capacity to manage change?
  • Do you have existing commitments (grants, partnerships, contracts, etc.) that would be impacted?
  • Is there funding tied to specific programs or positions?
  • What is the potential for unplanned staff departures?
  • What are the potential internal equity issues that could arise?
  • Are current titles and compensation aligned with the market?

Strategic By Design

Exploring the questions above—and any that extend from them—will guide your thinking toward developing a structure that is strategic rather than reactive, aligned with the work rather than people, and realistically implementable given constraints.

Starting with the “why” is the key to getting buy-in, navigating disappointments, and resolving friction once you begin to implement. It also provides a touchpoint to return to as you evaluate what works and what doesn’t in practice. It’s where we start with every client who comes to us for organizational design help, whether that leads to a board-ready structure and phased staffing plan or is simply a conversation about where to begin.

Keep Reading

  • Performance Management as Partnership. When the work gets hard, you need a concrete plan. “Board Whisperer” Cynthia Mills shares her framework for building board-CEO partnerships that can weather the demands of transformation.
  • How To Define a Job in Your Association or Nonprofit. Many organizations are creating roles that did not exist a few years ago or that no longer fit neatly into an old template. This is how we help clients define a new role when there is important work to be done and no clear precedent to follow.