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Assess First: A Practical Guide to Org Design · The Science of Leading

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Science of Leading, I'm Claire Monroe with Edwin Carrington.
• 0:03
  Edwin, we've spent two episodes on why structure matters and what a failing one
• 0:07
  looks like.
• 0:08
  Today I want the actual process.
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  If a leader accepts they have a design problem, what do they do Monday morning?
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  Monday morning, they do not touch the org chart, Claire.
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  That's the mistake almost everyone makes.
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  They redraw boxes before they know what's actually broken.
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  The process starts with facts, not a redesign.
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  So step one is assessment.
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  Step one is assessment, and it's specific.
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  Where does work slow down, cycle time, backlog, rework.
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  Where does quality drop, defects, customer complaints.
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  Where is talent risk rising, turnover, internal transfers, burnout signals.
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  And where do decisions stall, approval queues, meeting load.
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  You're not guessing at this.
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  You're using validated behavioral data and quick surveys to find the actual pattern
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  by function, by layer, by team.
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  And step two builds on that.
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  Step two, you map decision rights.
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  What are the key decisions that actually drive outcomes, who currently decides them,
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  who should decide them based on who's closest to the information,
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  and what are the real reporting lines and escalation rules.
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  This is the step where most leaders discover their real structure isn't the org
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  chart at all.
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  It's the influence network.
• 1:23
  That's such an interesting way to put it, the org chart tells you the fiction and
• 1:26
  the influence network tells you the truth.
• 1:28
  Exactly.
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  Once you have both maps, the fiction and the truth, step three is fixing role design
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  before you touch a single box.
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  Simplify role descriptions.
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  Remove overlap.
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  Define authority and accountability explicitly.
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  Set decision rules for the choices that come up again and again,
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  so people aren't relitigating the same call every month.
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  And that alone creates lift, before anyone's even reorganized anything.
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  Immediate lift, and it's nearly free compared to a reorg.
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  Step four is where discipline matters most.
• 2:02
  Pilot the new design in one area.
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  One department, where the workflow is measurable, the leader is genuinely committed,
• 2:09
  and you can compare before and after with real numbers.
• 2:13
  You do not roll out a new design company-wide unless chaos is the goal.
• 2:17
  Deloitte's research on this actually backs up how rare the discipline is.
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  They found plenty of leaders say redesign is a priority, but far fewer feel
• 2:25
  confident they can actually execute it well.
• 2:28
  That confidence gap is almost always a cadence gap.
• 2:31
  People try to do a bold, one-time reorg instead of a disciplined pilot.
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  Which brings us to step five, collect the feedback, both kinds.
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  Quant is KPI movement, cycle time, quality, engagement and retention signals.
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  Qual is where confusion increased, where decisions got faster or slower,
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  what got easier or harder for the people actually doing the work.
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  And step six.
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  Step six, you treat it as a cadence, not an event.
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  Quarterly review for friction and KPI drift.
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  Semiannual review for structural changes.
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  Annual review for strategy alignment and capacity planning.
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  Across OAD's own data, ten million assessments, more than forty countries,
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  the organizations that treat this as an ongoing rhythm outperform the ones that
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  treat it as a once-a-year event, every time.
• 3:25
  Okay, so let's talk about the KPIs themselves, because step five said "collect
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  feedback," but what are you actually measuring on an ongoing basis,
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  not just during a pilot?
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  Three layers, and if you're missing one, you're flying with half the instruments
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  dark.
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  Layer one is business outcomes, revenue growth or margin, customer satisfaction and
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  retention, quality metrics like defects and escalations, and time to delivery.
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  That's the layer everyone already tracks.
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  And layer two is the one people skip.
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  Layer two is the execution system itself.
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  Decision cycle time for the decisions that actually matter.
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  Handoff failure rate, rework, reopened tickets.
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  Meeting load and approval queues.
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  Time to fill and time to productivity for critical roles.
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  This layer tells you why layer one is moving, not just that it moved.
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  And layer three?
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  Layer three is people and capability.
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  Engagement, regrettable turnover, internal mobility and promotions,
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  manager effectiveness signals like span health and coaching cadence.
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  Gallup's meta-analysis is the reminder here, engagement correlates with
• 4:32
  productivity, profitability, and turnover directly.
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  It's not a separate HR report nobody reads.
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  It belongs in the same review as revenue.
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  So the leaders who get this right are looking at all three layers together,
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  not picking their favorite one and ignoring the rest.
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  That's the whole discipline, Claire.
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  Business outcomes tell you what happened.
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  Execution indicators tell you why.
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  People indicators tell you whether it's sustainable.
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  Miss any one of the three and you're managing blind on that dimension.
• 5:01
  If you want to see where your own team sits across those layers before you run a
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  pilot of your own, OAD has a free Top Performer Profile, real behavioral data on
• 5:10
  your people in about seven minutes, results in twenty-four hours,
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  no credit card.
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  That's O-A-D dot A-I.
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  Assess first.
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  Redesign second.
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  In that order, always.
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  Perfect place to leave it.
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  Thanks, Edwin.
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  Always, Claire.