Leadership team & organisation

Is the problem the people — or the way the organisation is designed?

Problems often present as individuals. Many belong to roles, decision rights and structures that no longer fit.

The obvious question

It usually starts with a name. A director is not delivering, a team keeps missing targets, decisions stall around one person. The instinct is to ask whether that person is right for the role.

The deeper decision

Sometimes they are not. But replacing a person in a badly designed role often produces the same problem with a new name attached. Before judging the individual, it is worth asking whether the role is coherent, whether decision rights are clear, and whether the structure still matches what the organisation is trying to do.

The deeper question is whether you are looking at a capability gap or a design gap — and how to tell them apart before acting.

What changes the answer

Growth: Structures built for one scale often strain silently at the next.
Overlapping roles: When two people believe they own the same decision, both look ineffective.
The CEO’s habits: If decisions still end with the CEO, roles below can only partly function.
History: Roles shaped around past individuals often outlive their logic.

What most people underestimate

Serial replacementWhen the same role has failed with several capable people, the role is usually the problem.
Hidden dependenciesSome people are carrying gaps in the design that only become visible once they leave.
Team compositionA team of individually strong people can still lack a capability the organisation needs.
FairnessHolding people accountable for outcomes they do not control damages trust far beyond one role.

Replace the person in a broken role, and the problem returns with a new name.See when this question arises →

What evidence actually matters

What tends to persuade

One visible failure
The views of the loudest stakeholders
Comparison with how a predecessor did the job

What tends to predict

Whether the role has a clear, achievable mandate
Where decisions actually get made, not where the chart says
Whether similar problems recur across different people
How the team functions as a system, not only as individuals

What persuades is not irrelevant. It simply tends to weigh more in the room than it deserves.

What to ask next

1Has this role worked well with anyone in the last few years?
2Where are decisions really made — and where should they be?
3What would change if we redesigned the role before replacing the person?
4Is the team missing a capability, or is a capability in the wrong place?

From the other side of the table

“Stefan combines strong business judgement with a deep understanding of people. In several senior appointments, he looked well beyond experience and personality, examining whether a person’s capability matched the complexity of the role and the organization around it. That creates a much richer view of fit: candidate, role, team and organization considered together. He is proactive, authentic and genuinely interested in both sides of the decision.”

Senior Talent Leader · Public Infrastructure

Read the perspective →

What are you looking at?