Core organization design frameworks.
We know the joke: consultants use way too many frameworks. But these are our favorites. Rooted in Jay Galbraith’s methodology and refined over years of practice, these are the essential models we rely on to guide our clients.
Center-Led Framework
Integration is not the same as control.
Center-Led
Shared strategy, common process, and data sources; clear decision guardrails. Empowered team norms: freedom in a framework.
Centralized
Single strategy and centralized reporting structures, with strong policy and controls from the center.
Decentralized
High autonomy of businesses with less functional or central guidance; little synergy expected.
High Control / Low Integration
Bureaucracy heavy.
↖ The move most organizations need is toward center-led.
In the center-led quadrant
People in the center and in the business share decision power to accomplish shared objectives, despite differences in their individual goals and perspectives. It is enabled by shared strategy, a common agenda, harmonized processes, and collaborative norms.
Use all three deliberately
- Centralize work and decisions where it’s appropriate.
- Decentralize work that needs no collaboration.
- Center-led gets the benefits of both, but relies heavily on shared norms and behaviors.
Integration and control are two constructs that are often confused. The center-led framework removes the false choice between centralization and decentralization: a company can design in high degrees of integration and empower teams at the edge, limiting unnecessary controls. In the center-led quadrant, people in the global center and in local business teams work together, sharing decision power to accomplish shared objectives, enabled by shared strategy, a common agenda, harmonized processes, and collaborative norms embedded in the culture.
How we use it with clients
We use it to reframe the centralize-versus-decentralize debate that stalls so many function and enterprise designs. Leaders place where each function sits today and where it should be; the move most need is from high control and low integration toward center-led. Because center-led relies on shared norms and behaviors, we then use the other points of the Star Model to shape them. When people known for working collaboratively across boundaries are promoted to senior roles, for example, the message is clear that the organization values and rewards collaboration.