Designing your Team for Success

Whether you are running a department or running a business, you must be able to get results. 

Yet I work with a lot of high achievers who can’t seem to get department or company-level results because their team is disjointed, doing double work, feeling frustrated, and not contributing enough to overall success. 

Before you know it, these high achievers turn into one-person shows, try to get all the results themselves, and eventually burn out. Which sucks! 

Luckily, there is a simple process I have seen (and helped) leaders implement in order to get the most out of their team. It starts with creating an organizational chart and ends with getting buy-in from each individual. 

Eventually, results become much easier to achieve while boosting employee engagement and productivity. I call this process “Organizational Design For Success,” and today, I will give you the four steps to implementing it with your team tomorrow. 

1) Design the org chart 

An organizational chart is the functional model for your business or department. 

There isn’t a right or wrong answer for how it looks, but some best practices are that it should be clear, simple, and scalable. Additionally, always design the org chart for how it should look based on the business’s needs—not based on the people you currently have in place. 

In other words, you can’t design an org chart that doesn’t make any sense from an operational perspective because you’re thinking too hard about individual team members and their strengths and weaknesses. If you do, you’ll design an organization structure that doesn’t make any sense and isn’t scalable. 

So, start by taking stock of the current roles and titles in your business, then answer questions like: 

• What are our top 3 goals as a department/company? 

• What results would allow us to consider those goals a success? 

• How many people do we need to achieve our desired results? 

• Who reports to who? Who should report to who? 

• What titles make the most sense? 

• What roles are we missing today that we need to create more organizational clarity and effectiveness? 

• What roles do we have today that don’t fit and are causing organizational confusion and inefficiency? 

• What managers do we need to ensure we get results in this/each department? 

Then, do some research on typical designs and start sketching yours. Sit on it for a few weeks before making a final decision, and, in the meantime, start defining roles and responsibilities. 

If you want more on organizational chart design and overall construction business success, you may love our book, Well Built, where our Founder/CEO Chad Prinkey distills 15+ years of building construction companies into one easy-to-follow guide. Start the next evolution of your business here. 

2) Create a plan for transitioning roles and responsibilities 

At this point, you’ve likely shaken up your team’s structure with new roles and responsibilities, and potentially new reporting structures. So, you’ve got to create a plan for transitioning all those roles and responsibilities. 

Depending on the amount of shake-up you’re taking on, this could be anywhere from simple to complex. Ultimately, you must clearly explain how each person’s role will change, any responsibilities they were be transitioning to others, and any new responsibilities they are taking on. 

Put a timeline to each transition. Make sure the steps are clear. It will take some time, but it will be worth it. 

3) Create career paths 

Now that you’ve got an org chart, each position’s career path will be much clearer! 

For example, if you’ve designed an organizational chart with a path from APM → PM → Sr. PM → Project Executive, then the next APM that joins your business will know from Day 1 that their career path is destined for a Project Executive role—if they are able to build the competencies needed. 

So, you need to lay out the competencies necessary for each role. Create a doc for each career path, include a basic job description as well as the core competencies necessary to achieve that level. Remember: this will be a tool for engagement—because people love to know where they’re going developmentally, and what they need to do to get there. So, make it exciting! 

4) Get buy-in 

None of this matters if you can’t get your team to buy into it. 

So, after building your structure and paths, create a compelling story for the future of your department or company. Use the organizational chart and career paths to paint the picture. Then operationalize it with the transition plan. 

Be prepared for a lot of questions and nervousness as change occurs. Listen and be patient with people. 

Then, stick to the plan and show everyone we are committed to it. 

Change is never easy 

While change is never easy, I promise this is a formula for building a more engaged and effective team. It will take dedication, commitment, emotional intelligence, and strong leadership. Go put it into action tomorrow. 

If you need help, reach out, and we may be able to help. 

Spark Notes:

• Organizational design is key to achieving results 

• Many leaders burn out trying to do everything themselves 

• It’s easier to get your team to contribute to results when there’s a clear organizational structure and hierarchy 

• Get your team designed for success, get buy-in, and then go execute 

• Let’s talk about how!