Defining Organizational Design

At JustOrg Design, we define organizational design as:

the intentional and ongoing co-activation of organizational strategy, structure, and decision-making

Because justice-centered strategies are inherently emergent and dynamic, our structures have to be flexible enough to hold and advance them. Because decision-making is how strategy is actually activated, it has to be conscious and skillful across the organization. Organizational design is about making sure there is a strong and elegant relationship between your active strategies, your active structures, and your active choice-making.

the practice of strategic alignment

Organizational design is ongoing strategic leadership work. It cannot be maintained in a static org chart or a powerpoint deck. It is an active and ongoing set of choices that leadership makes to ensure everyone is engaged in the most important work the organization can be doing in its movement or field right now.

NOTE: Our definition and approach to organizational design are an adaptation for justice-centered nonprofits and philanthropies of principles that have existed for sixty years. See the work of Jay Galbraith for more on this history.