How To Design An Organization That You're Proud Of, From The Ground Up

At its core, organizational design is about the intentional choices you make in designing your organization’s structure, culture, and processes. You can organize the building blocks in different ways to address different challenges, ask different questions, and position yourself for growth and stability in the future. 

The idea is that we don’t build our organizations at 30,000 feet. Instead, we design them by being intentional about what’s happening on the ground and then building up from there. 

We make decisions as we move along about each of the building blocks, and they add up to an organization that we are proud of.  

So why am I talking about this topic? Because running an organization can feel scary and overwhelming sometimes – like a massive undertaking. How do we create and nurture the culture that feels right? How do we get our board to work together? How do we address issues of power and authority as roles shift on our team? 

You address these questions by notching down – by examining and thinking about the more basic elements of your organization’s design on a more granular level. 

So I’m going to walk through the building blocks and then share a resource to help you use them as a tool in your organization.