There is a specific kind of organisational pain that arrives somewhere between 40 and 100 people. The structure that worked when everyone knew everyone, when decisions happened in corridors and accountability was informal, stops working. Things fall through gaps. Decisions take longer. People are unclear about who owns what. The founders or senior leaders find themselves pulled into operational detail they should not be touching. This is not a management failure. It is a structural one, and it has a structural solution.

Diagnose before you redesign

The temptation when an organisation is feeling structural pain is to redraw the org chart. Resist it. Before you move any boxes, spend time understanding where the friction actually is. Which decisions are taking too long, and why? Where are things falling through gaps, and what are those gaps? Which roles are unclear, and to whom? The answers will tell you whether you have a structural problem, a role clarity problem, a decision-making problem, or some combination of all three. Each requires a different intervention.

The difference between structure and role clarity

Many organisations that think they have a structural problem actually have a role clarity problem. The reporting lines are broadly right, but the boundaries between roles are fuzzy. Two people think they own the same decision. Nobody owns a third decision that clearly needs an owner. Fixing this does not require a restructure. It requires a role clarity exercise: a systematic process of defining what each role is accountable for, what it is responsible for, and what it is consulted on. That work is less dramatic than a restructure and considerably more useful.

Designing for where you are going, not where you are

A structural redesign should be designed for the organisation you will be in 18 to 24 months, not the one you are today. That means being honest about which roles will need to grow, which functions will need to be separated, and which current role-holders have the capacity to grow into a larger version of their job. It also means being honest about the cases where they do not. Designing a structure around the current capabilities of the current team is a common mistake. It produces a structure that is already out of date before it is implemented.

Managing the transition

The transition from the old structure to the new one is where most redesigns fail. The new chart is announced, people nod, and then the old informal structure reasserts itself because nobody has changed the habits, the meeting rhythms, or the decision-making processes that supported the old way of working. A transition plan needs to address all of those things: which meetings change, which decisions move to new owners, how the change will be communicated to the wider team, and what the review point is for assessing whether the new structure is working.

Structural problems in growing organisations are normal. They are a sign that the business has grown, not that it is broken. The question is whether you address them deliberately or wait until the pain becomes acute. If your organisation is showing signs of structural strain, the questions we hear most often has more on what to look for.