The Perfect Fit: Aligning Structure with Strategy

How many times do we hear business leaders proudly say their organisational design* and ways of working as being ‘the best’, the ‘most productive’ or ‘a game changer’?  But what if we told you that what is a success for one business may destroy another?  

Why?  Because each business needs something different to succeed.  Each business operates in a different market, with a different set of goals and different definitions of what ‘success’ looks like.  When you align your design with what you are trying to achieve, it creates a foundation for efficiency, agility, and long-term success.  When you adopt someone else’s recipe for success, you disconnect from staying true to what your business really needs.

So - here's the key reasons why alignment matters.

Reason 1: Strategic Alignment Drives Focus

Alignment gives you the ability to have everyone in the organisation working towards the same outcomes, in the same way. When the structure of the organisation is tailored to its strategy, employees understand their roles and how their contributions fit into the bigger picture. This alignment fosters a sense of purpose and clarity, which in turn drives engagement and motivation.

Take for example an organisation is focused on new product development. Its design must support flexible and cross-functional teams that include people with lots of different ideas.  They need to collaborate quickly and effectively, to take an idea into testing and market research.  They will need processes that encourage debate and curiousity early on, but then move into efficient and consistent ways of creating and refining the product idea.. On the other hand, an organisation that prioritises cost control (aka operational efficiency) will adopt a more hierarchical structure with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, where people are organised into functional teams. By aligning design with strategy, businesses eliminate confusion and create a direct line of sight between individual activities and organisational success.

Reason 2: Change what really matters to your performance

These days, we expect change to happen constantly in organisations – we love agility and responsiveness. An aligned organisational design allows a business to focus on the activities that matter most – which means you are naturally forced to pay attention to the market changes, customer needs, and emerging opportunities that matter to you. When processes and structures are designed with an emphasis on the things that make a difference to your business – and you deprioritise work or effort in areas that don’t matter to you - you can change the things that matter faster.

Imagine a global business that has customers in two major regions.  These customers have different demands, different needs, buy different services.  So, they would establish a decentralized structure that empowers their local or regional teams to make decisions. This decentralization can lead to faster decision-making and a more tailored approach to addressing local market dynamics. By comparison, a company that runs a local manufacturing business, all in one country, with no real difference in operating environments would centralise, with common structures because they will benefit from consistency and scalability (and therefore lower cost) across their operations. 

Reason 3: Create the work environment that drives the behaviours you need

Organisational design plays a significant role in shaping culture (aka ‘how things are done around here’). When an organisation’s design aligns with its cultural aspirations, it fosters a cohesive work environment where employees are encouraged to behave in similar ways. For example, an organisation that values collaboration should implement structures and processes that encourage teamwork, such as open communication channels, shared goals, and opportunities for cross-functional interaction.  They would also encourage open source technology platforms and peer to peer information sharing (instead of ‘top down’ updates).

By comparison, a high risk operating environment – perhaps in mining or oil and gas – will have more controls over information, particularly if it is related to work procedures and safety. 

Misalignment between culture and design, on the other hand, can create friction and lead to employee dissatisfaction. If an organisation promotes innovation but maintains a rigid, hierarchical structure that shuts down creativity, it sends mixed signals to employees, ultimately creating high levels of cynicism. Aligned design ensures that the way people work reflects the values the organisation seeks to embody.

Reason 4: Have the work and the jobs that focus on what matters for your business

Lastly, aligned organisational design improves operational efficiency and performance. When structures, processes, and roles are purposefully aligned, there is a reduction in wasted effort, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies. People are clear on the work that matters, who they need to go to to get things done and how they personally add value to the overall ‘value chain’ of the business.   This streamlining of operations enables faster decision-making, reduces costs, and enhances overall performance.

Additionally, aligned design ensures that talent is placed where it can have the greatest impact. Clear roles and responsibilities eliminate confusion and frustration.  And when people play in position, everyone feels as though they belong – so both the people and the organisation get to benefit.

Aligned organisational design is not just a matter of structure but of how you organise your work processes and role design. Deliberately designing your business to be the perfect fit isn’t always easy, but in the end will deliver greater benefits than ‘copying and pasting’ someone else’s design.

 * When we say ‘Organisational design’ we mean the structure, roles, processes, and relationships that shape how an organisation operates

💡 RESOURCE

If you’re interested in delving deeper into this topic, we recommend grabbing a copy of Jonathan Trevor’s ‘Align: A Leadership Blueprint for Aligning Enterprise Purpose, Strategy and Organisation”. 
Available on Amazon