How Organisations Organise Themselves

Question 6 of 6: How do I do it with others? · The whole story

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Every organisation, from a sports club to a large company, has to answer the same questions: who does what, who decides what, and how people work together across teams. A good structure makes these answers obvious. A poor one makes people wait, repeat work, or argue about who is in charge.

Dividing the work

There are four common ways to group people. Most organisations mix them.

By function: finance, sales, IT, operations. Experts work together and grow their skills. The risk is silos: each team optimises its own work, and nobody owns the whole customer journey.
By product, customer or region: one unit per product line or country, each with its own people. Decisions are close to the customer. The cost is duplication: five units may each build their own tools.
Matrix: people belong to a function and to a product or project. It combines expertise with focus, but people have two bosses, so priorities must be agreed clearly.
Small autonomous teams: small, mixed teams own one outcome from start to finish, such as “new customers sign up easily”. They move fast, but need shared standards so the teams don’t drift apart.

Rule of thumb: organise around what matters most right now. If quality and expertise matter most, group by function. If speed and customers matter most, group by product or outcome.

Structure follows priorities. First, leadership sets the priorities and puts money and people behind them. Then the structure follows: a big, lasting priority may get its own team, and one that cuts across teams may get a committee or project group. A team or committee without budget or authority shows a priority on paper but changes little.

How many people per manager

A manager can usually lead 5 to 10 people well. Fewer, and you get too many layers, with slow decisions and managers who micromanage. More, and people get too little support. Fewer layers mean information travels faster from the people doing the work to the people deciding.

Who decides what

Most friction comes from unclear decision rights, not from bad people. For each recurring decision, make clear:

One owner who decides, even after hearing many views.
Who is consulted before the decision.
Who is informed after it.

Write this down for the decisions that come up often: budgets, hiring, priorities, buying tools. And push decisions down: whoever has the best information and lives with the result should decide, within clear limits (“up to €5,000”, “within the agreed plan”).

When nobody defines it

Sometimes leadership leaves it to the teams, often in a matrix where everyone has two managers. Then propose the rules yourselves:

List the 4 or 5 decisions that keep getting stuck: priorities, how people split their time, hiring, deadlines.
Write one line for each: who decides, who is consulted, who is informed. A common split: the function manager decides how the work is done, the product or project manager decides what gets done and when.
Add a tie-break. If the two managers disagree, their shared manager decides within a week. Don’t leave conflicts to people with no authority to settle them.
Agree it with both managers in the same meeting, so nobody hears a different version.
If nobody answers, set a default: “Unless you object by Friday, this is how we’ll work.” Write it down and review it after three months.

Group Decision Making shows how to run one decision well (DACI, pre-mortem). This guide is about the structure around many decisions.

Committees: useful or a burden?

A committee is a group that decides or advises on one topic across teams, such as a budget, a risk, or a big project. It’s useful when a topic truly needs several views, or needs independence (an audit or ethics committee).

Committees work well when they have:

A clear purpose, in writing: what it decides, what it only advises on, and what it doesn’t handle.
5 to 7 members. Larger groups talk more and decide less.
A chair who prepares the agenda, keeps time, and makes sure a decision is reached.
A clear decision rule. Either the committee decides together (by vote or agreement, with the chair deciding if it can’t agree), or it advises one named person who decides. Everyone should know which of the two it is.
Real authority. A committee that can only recommend to another committee wastes everyone’s time.
An end date or a yearly review. Many committees outlive their purpose. If it disappeared tomorrow, would anyone miss it?

Warning sign: the same topic goes through three committees and comes back for “more analysis”. Then the problem is unclear decision rights, not a lack of meetings.

A simple rhythm

Organisations run more smoothly with a few regular meetings, each with one clear purpose, than with many vague ones:

Daily or weekly team check-in (15 minutes): progress, blockers, who needs help.
Monthly review: results against goals, and what to change.
Quarterly or yearly planning: priorities and budget for the next period.

Give each meeting an owner, a purpose and a short written outcome: what was decided, who does what, by when.

Who decides the structure

The people at the top are accountable for the overall design:

In a company: the CEO and leadership team. Big changes, like merging divisions or removing a layer, are usually approved by the board. Each manager then organises their own area within that frame.
In a club or association: the board, within the bylaws. Creating or closing a standing committee may need a vote of the members.
In public bodies: the law, ministers or elected councils set the main structure, and senior officials organise the details.

The best changes aren’t designed alone at the top. Ask the people doing the work where things get stuck, try the change, and review it after 6 to 12 months.

Signs the structure needs work

Decisions keep going back and forth, or everything goes up to the top.
Two teams do the same work without knowing it.
Nobody can say who owns an important problem.
People spend more time in meetings and reports than on the work itself.
Good people leave because they can’t get anything done.

Change the structure only when these signs persist. Reorganising too often costs months of confusion. Often, clearer decision rights and fewer, better meetings are enough.

Your next step

Try today: Pick one decision that keeps getting stuck in your team or club, and agree who owns it.

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