YOUR ORG CHART IS NOT A STRATEGY: STOP REARRANGING DECK CHAIRS
There’s a strange ritual that happens in boardrooms every fall. Executives gather to review “next year’s plan,” and somewhere around slide 38, someone suggests that what the company really needs is… a new org structure.
Cue the whiteboard marker. Circles. Boxes. Dotted lines. Innovation achieved!
If you listen closely, you can hear Peter Drucker facepalming from beyond the grave.
Let’s be clear: reorganizing your people is not the same as reorganizing your priorities.
Yet far too often, that’s exactly how companies attempt to drive change. Strategy is fuzzy, execution is lagging, and morale is low—so leadership rearranges the org chart like it’s a game of corporate Jenga.
Spoiler alert: it usually falls down.
The Great Myth of Org Chart Alchemy
The belief goes something like this:
“If we just change the boxes, we’ll change the outcomes.”
It’s a seductive thought. Tidy. Visual. Control-oriented.
And completely wrong.
McKinsey research shows that only 23% of organizational redesigns deliver improved performance. The rest? Confusion, resistance, politics, and more time spent in meetings than in markets.
New leadership will bring change. Guaranteed. Centralize, decentralize, direct channels, indirect channels. Changes to structure will happen.
Why? Because structure is downstream of strategy. Changing who reports to whom doesn’t matter if you’re not clear on what actually matters.
Strategy Before Structure. Always.
Here’s the BETR truth: structure should enable strategy—not create it.
You don’t design an organization and hope a strategy will emerge. You define a strategy that forces clarity around what success requires. Then you build an org that can execute.
This isn’t a philosophical nuance. It’s a survival skill.
Take sales strategy, for example. If your goal next year is to:
● Land 50% more enterprise logos,
● Drive multi-product adoption,
● And move up-market into complex selling environments…
Then your org structure, hiring plan, enablement, comp, and even CRM workflow need to serve that strategy. Not last year’s. Not someone’s pet project. Not a siloed agenda from finance.
Your account teams, pre-sales support, and frontline managers should reflect your priorities—not your politics.
If structure leads, you get misalignment. If strategy leads, you get leverage.
How We Got Here: The Tyranny of the Reorg
So why do companies reach for the org chart whenever growth stalls or transformation fizzles?
Because it feels like action. It gives the illusion of decisiveness. And, frankly, it’s easier than doing the hard thinking that strategy demands.
Real strategy asks:
● What will we choose to prioritize?
● Where will we deliberately not play?
● What behaviors must change to win?
● How do we align message, motion, and management?
Those are uncomfortable questions. They create trade-offs. They force coherence. A reorg, on the other hand, gives everyone something to talk about without anyone needing to be truly accountable for outcomes.
Plus, there’s always the fallback: “Let’s give it a quarter or two and see how it lands.”
It never lands. It just lingers.
A BETR Way to Plan
As companies head into planning season, here’s the uncomfortable challenge:
If your strategy can’t be explained without pulling out a slide deck… you don’t have one.
If your teams couldn’t tell you what changed last year—and what’s changing this year—you don’t have focus. You have drift.
What you need is a deliberate connection between corporate strategy, sales strategy, and execution strategy.
That starts with clarity on a few deceptively simple questions:
● What must we do differently next year to grow faster, better, or more profitably?
● What are the 2-3 behaviors across go-to-market roles that must change or improve?
● How will we measure success that isn’t just a revenue number?
Answer those questions first. Then—and only then—should you decide if your current org structure can support it. If not? Then you reorg with purpose. Not panic.
A Word on Sales Strategy (Because That’s Where This Is Going)
Most companies assume a sales strategy is just a go-to-market plan. Who we sell to. What we sell. What channels we use.
That’s part of it. But real sales strategy is about the alignment of message, motion, and management to your strategic priorities.
● Message: Are we clearly differentiating in the market around what matters?
● Motion: Do our reps have a consistent, effective way to engage?
● Management: Are front-line leaders reinforcing the right behaviors?
If you’re not thinking this way yet, your SKO won’t fix it.
If you are thinking this way, your SKO is your best shot at fixing everything else.
And that’s where this blog series is headed—how to turn your Sales Kickoff from a corporate pep rally into a strategic mobilization moment.
Final Thought: Stop Moving Boxes. Start Moving Minds.
You can spend Q4 shifting job titles around and calling it progress.
Or you can make next year count.
BETR works with senior leaders to simplify strategy, align sales execution, and build sales organizations that win on purpose—not by accident.
Let’s talk before you unleash another org chart Armageddon.
We’ll bring a sharpie. You bring the courage.