BCG’s approach to organization design starts with a single premise: changing a company’s performance requires changing the organizational context in which its employees perform.
What happens in a company is not simply a matter of organization structures, processes, and systems but also one of behavior—that is, how people act, interact, and make decisions. To address this underlying driver of performance, BCG applies a set of levers that transform individual behaviors, encourage new ways of working, and create a purpose-driven organizational culture.
By using this organization design approach, BCG recently ranked as best among market leaders on organization strategy consulting, earning top scores for depth of capabilities, breadth of capabilities, and client impact, according to ALM Intelligence.
Creating a high-performance organization requires not only optimizing an organization’s structure and roles but also changing its ways of working and its approach to building and aligning capabilities in leadership and culture.
BCG’s approach to redesigning an organization, which we call Smart Design for Performance, has demonstrated great success in boosting company performance, mastering complexity, and enhancing employee engagement. The organization design approach involves three main steps:
Define the purpose of the reorganization. Clearly identify the company’s performance shortfall—that is, the gap between its current and target performance. Determine the precise aims of the reorganization effort—with regard to competitive advantage, strategic priorities, and the organization’s pain points.
Define the target behaviors and design the organization accordingly. Determine the behaviors that will support the purpose of the reorganization. Design the organization to promote those behaviors, using a broad range of leading organization design elements, including organization structure, roles and responsibilities, individual talent, and organization enablers.
Make it happen. Establish the right context throughout the organization and enhance the capabilities of leaders and top talent through distributed design, rigorous program management with multilayered communication, and capability building.
Managing Director & Partner
New York
BCG’s proprietary OrgBuilder tool lets companies rapidly achieve design and talent objectives by mobilizing and synchronizing the actions of thousands of individuals throughout the enterprise.
Companies that adopt agile ways of working are five times more likely to experience faster growth and higher profits than those that don’t. Several other elements of good organization design can also help.
Reorganization is a powerful lever for boosting company performance, but the results are often disappointing. A smart new approach dramatically increases the likelihood of success.
As change accelerates, most companies are not keeping up. Leaders need to understand the key drivers of change and redesign their organizations with a focus on six core attributes.
