The Goal Isn’t to Own More
I’ve been thinking a lot about organizational design lately.
Over time, teams tend to collect work.
Sometimes it’s intentional. Other times, someone steps in because there’s a gap, they’re good at it, or frankly, somebody just needs to get it done.
Do that long enough and it becomes part of the organization.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it still belongs there.
I’ve been looking at some of that recently and asking a pretty simple question:
If we were building this organization today, would we put this work here?
Sometimes the answer is no.
And I think we have to be okay with that.
Maybe the work fits better somewhere else. Maybe the person doing it would have better support on another team. Maybe moving it creates clearer ownership across the organization.
That might mean giving up scope. It might even mean moving good people out of your organization.
I don’t think that makes your organization weaker.
As leaders, it’s easy to look at headcount, scope, and responsibility as measures of growth. But I’m starting to think there are times when good organizational design means owning less, not more.
The goal shouldn’t be to build the biggest organization you can.
It should be to put the work, and the people doing it, where they have the best chance to succeed.
That’s a different way of looking at growth.
Thoughts?