Just What Exactly Do You Mean by Org Design?
“Organizational design” might sound like corporate jargon, but if you’ve ever wondered why your teams keep running into the same roadblocks, or why decision-making feels slow and confusing, chances are you're bumping up against the need for it.
Organizational design (or “org design” or “OD” or a multitude of other catch phrases) is the art and science of aligning structure, roles, decision rights, and workflows with your strategy. It’s not about making a prettier org chart, but ensuring that the way your organization operates actually supports the business you're trying to build. Let’s spend some time to break down what org design really is, what a typical consulting process looks like, and what kinds of problems might (or might not) signal that it’s time to invest in this kind of work.
What Is Organizational Design?
Organizational design is the intentional shaping of how work gets done in your company - how people, processes, and systems are arranged to deliver your strategy. When done well, it makes clear:
Who is accountable for what
How decisions get made
How teams collaborate across functions
What capabilities need to be built or strengthened
According to Deloitte, “organizations must be designed to respond to disruption and innovate at speed”. But most companies weren’t built for today’s fast-changing environment. They were designed for stability and efficiency, with hierarchy and clear chains of command. That model no longer works when you need speed, cross-functional collaboration, and adaptability. Instead, today’s high-performing organizations are flatter, more networked, and agile by design. Org design brings the intentionality needed to make that shift successful.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Signs You Might Need Org Design
Org design work tends to be most valuable when your strategy or operating environment has changed and your current setup is no longer keeping up. You might need to take a closer look if:
Your org chart is no longer clear. You’ve added new teams or layers, and no one’s quite sure who owns what.
Teams are operating in silos. Collaboration across functions is slow, inconsistent, or full of friction.
Decision-making is sluggish or redundant. Multiple people weigh in, but no one is really accountable.
You’re scaling quickly or integrating after a merger. Rapid growth often breaks legacy structures.
Your business model or strategy has shifted. A new market, product, or go-to-market motion may require a fundamentally different setup.
Gartner has found that companies who redesign with clarity and intention are significantly more likely to hit their growth targets.
…And, When It’s Not an Org Design Problem
In our work here, we see leaders who believe a structural change will fix all of their problems. Unfortunately, some issues that feel like design problems are better addressed by engaging your workforce.
For example, if your employee engagement scores are dropping, or if people report feeling disconnected or unmotivated, the root cause might lie in leadership communication, team dynamics, or psychological safety. These are signals for a culture or engagement intervention, not a structural redesign. Burnout and retention challenges are also often misdiagnosed. If your people are leaving, the issue might be your senior and middle management, unclear career paths, or a lack of recognition - issues that don’t necessarily call for a new org chart.
Even collaboration problems aren’t always structural. If teams aren’t working well together, you might need better norms, feedback mechanisms, or shared goals, rather than a wholesale reorg. As HBR notes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” but structure eats culture for lunch if left unexamined.
A Typical Organizational Design Process
Many of my clients ask about what’s ‘behind the curtain’ for this type of work, and while each consultant may bring a different toolkit, most org design projects follow a common arc. Here’s what that generally looks like:
1. Clarify Strategy and Context
The starting point for any org design effort is clarity on what the business is trying to achieve. A consultant will engage with executives to understand strategic goals, market pressures, recent changes, and the “why” behind the need for redesign. This can look like one meeting or call, or multiple meetings with all stakeholders involved. This step is highly dependent on the organization’s culture, and how comfortable you are developing trust. It’s an involved process, and trust is important to establish.
2. Assess the Current State
Through interviews, org charts, performance data, and process analysis, we evaluate how the organization currently operates. Some firms (including ours!) can also offer Social Network Analysis (SNA) to map the informal collaboration patterns that drive how work actually gets done. SNA helps uncover hidden influencers, bottlenecks, and fragile connections that a traditional org chart can’t show.
That said, if your organization prefers to remain strictly role-focused and ‘methodologically pure’ - steering clear of people data and interpersonal dynamics - we can keep the assessment to the formal structures. Both approaches are valid; it depends on the scope and comfort level of your team.
3. Align on Design Principles
This is a crucial but often skipped step. Good org design is guided by specific, and simple, principles - like “optimize for speed,” “prioritize customer proximity,” or “reduce management layers to empower frontline teams” - to ensure connection to your strategy. These principles act as guardrails when evaluating tradeoffs in structure, roles, and governance.
For example, at EJ Intelligence we use a curated playbook of design principles to help leadership teams clarify what matters most before we jump into scenarios. This includes tangible considerations like target spans of control, acceptable layers of management, criteria for when to remove or consolidate teams, and guidance on balancing efficiency vs. innovation or specialization vs. integration. Rather than forcing clients to choose from generic models, we co-create a custom design lens that reflects your goals, values, and constraints, ensuring the eventual structure isn’t just logical on paper but actually works in practice.
4. Develop and Evaluate Model Options
We explore multiple structural options, each designed to deliver on the chosen principles. This might include shifting spans of control, introducing new roles, merging functions, or changing reporting relationships. A strong consultant should test implications through both qualitative feedback and scenario modeling with leadership before moving forward to implement.
5. Finalize the Model and Support Implementation
Once a design is agreed upon, you should recieve a suite of transition deliverables to set your team up for success. This typically includes detailed role definitions, revised governance structures, decision-rights frameworks, communication plan templates, and guidance on capability-building, depending on what you requested at the onset of your project.
Consultants don’t typically lead the full implementation if your internal HR team is well-positioned to do so (calling in support as needed). This model ensures continuity and ownership, while still giving you the tools and guidance to make the new structure stick.
Final Thoughts
Organizational design isn’t just a one-time event. It’s a capability, one that forward-thinking companies are building into their leadership DNA. Done well, org design creates the conditions for strategy to succeed and for people to thrive. If you’re planning for growth, navigating complexity, or trying to unlock better performance, now might be the time to ask: is our organization designed to do what we say we want to do?
If you’re not sure, I’d be happy to explore that question with you.