Organizational Design

Every Organization Is Perfectly Designed to Get the Results That It Gets

There’s a timeless truth in organizational life: every organization is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets. This principle is often attributed to Arthur W. Jones (1960s), and has since been echoed in management and organizational development literature. It reminds leaders that outcomes (good or bad) are not accidental. They are the direct result of how an organization is designed: its structure, processes, culture, and ways of working.

Why Organizational Design Matters

Organizational design is more than an org chart. It’s the deliberate alignment of people, processes, technology, governance, and culture to strategy. Without this alignment, even the best goals and most talented teams struggle to deliver.

When organizations fail to meet their targets, leaders often focus on pushing harder — demanding more output, more efficiency, or more accountability. But without re-examining how the organization is designed, those efforts rarely translate into sustainable improvement. Design is the invisible architecture that shapes behavior, decision-making, and ultimately results.

The Trap of “One and Done”

Too often, organizational design is treated as a one-time project: a restructuring, a new set of roles, or a process redesign. Leaders roll out a new chart, declare victory, and move on. But organizations don’t operate in a static environment. Markets shift, customer expectations evolve, and new technologies emerge. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.

That’s why treating organizational design as an ongoing discipline - not a one-off event - is critical. Continuous focus ensures that design remains aligned with evolving goals and external realities.

Continuous Alignment to Goals

Imagine setting ambitious growth targets but leaving your sales structure, customer support model, and product development processes untouched. The misalignment becomes a barrier. Similarly, cost-efficiency goals demand different design choices than innovation goals.

By regularly assessing and adjusting organizational design, leaders can:

• Ensure clarity of purpose – everyone knows what matters most and how their work connects to it.

• Enable faster decision-making – by designing processes and structures that reduce bottlenecks.

• Build adaptability – so the organization can pivot when strategy or market conditions change.

• Reinforce culture – aligning behaviors, incentives, and leadership practices with the results you want.

A Leadership Imperative

The most successful organizations don’t leave design to chance. They embed regular check-ins, ask hard questions about whether their structure enables their strategy, and aren’t afraid to redesign when needed.

Leaders should consistently ask:

• Are we getting the results we want?

• If not, what in our design is reinforcing the wrong behaviors or outcomes?

• What adjustments will align us more closely to our goals?

Because at the end of the day, results don’t happen by accident. They are the outcome of design.

Closing Thought

If your organization isn’t getting the results you desire, it’s not about trying harder — it’s about designing smarter. The design you have today is perfectly tuned to deliver the outcomes you see. To get different results tomorrow, commit to making organizational design a continuous, strategic priority.