Organisational design

Organisational design

A healthy organisation is designed around the work. Not around positions, habits or the previous reorganisation. Good design makes collaboration natural. Poor design turns every day into a coordination problem.

Do you recognise this?

We meet a lot and coordinate constantly. Even so, the work falls between departments.

Employees see the problems but are not allowed to solve them. Everything goes up the line.

We have reorganised twice already. The organisation chart changed, the work did not.

I design organisations in a fixed sequence. First the grouping of the work itself, then the control structure, then the information it needs. That sequence comes from Dutch modern sociotechnical systems design and remains highly relevant. Whoever starts with management layers designs around the leadership instead of around the work.

Principles for healthy organisations

A good design groups work around complete assignments for customers, so teams see the whole and can take responsibility. It places control capacity as close as possible to where problems arise. It limits hand-offs and mutual dependencies. And it tests every design against three requirements at once: the quality of the organisation, the quality of the work and the quality of working relations.

Diagnosis and design

I start with a diagnosis of the existing structure. Where do disruptions arise, where does coordination pile up, where is room to act missing? We then design alternatives with the people who know the work and weigh them against each other. The result is a design you can explain and defend, with a realistic path towards it.

Psychodynamic. Structure also protects: against uncertainty, against conflict, against responsibility. Ignore that, and the old behaviour returns inside the new structure.

Systemic. Teams rarely function better than the place the design gives them. I look at the links between units, not only at the units themselves.

Human-AI. AI shifts tasks between people and systems. That changes how work is best grouped. I take that shift into the design.

Plan an exploratory conversation

Your structure serves the work. Teams solve what they encounter themselves. Less coordination is needed and there is more room for craftsmanship.