Org design is one of the highest-leverage tools I have as a product leader. When structure, incentives, and decision rights align, execution compounds. When they don’t, even great people and strategy stall. In this narrative, I share how I approach company structure, drawing on hard-won lessons from complex re-orgs, “GM-led” models, and the realities of pricing, packaging, and planning at scale.
Here’s the backbone of my philosophy. First, the principles of effective org design matter more than any single chart. I relentlessly return to five anchors: #1 Align on goals; #2 Separate design considerations from human considerations; #3 Define clear reasons each team exists; #4 Design for durability; #5 Be very intentional with comms. These make tradeoffs explicit, reduce churn, and clarify ownership so we can move faster with more confidence.
On timing, there are clear signs your company needs a re-org. When multiple teams chase overlapping goals, when decision latency rises, when cross-functional friction becomes the norm, or when strategy evolves but responsibilities don’t, it’s time to revisit the design. I look for outcome drift in OKRs, blurry escalations, and too many “two owners” problems as leading indicators.
Tradeoffs are inevitable. I surface them early: speed vs. cohesion, specialization vs. customer journey continuity, centralization vs. autonomy. I make the tradeoffs explicit in a one-page brief and tie them back to company goals. This keeps us honest about why we are changing the system—and what we expect to get in return.
Square’s “GM-led” structure offers a useful reference point. The core idea: give a single accountable owner end-to-end responsibility for a business (product, P&L, and cross-functional performance), then architect adjacent teams to enable—not dilute—that accountability. In my practice, I define crisp swimlanes, escalation paths, and shared principles for collaboration at the seams so GMs move fast without fragmenting the customer experience.
Why Square centralized GTM speaks to a broader truth I’ve seen across SaaS: fragmentation in go-to-market creates inconsistent messaging, pricing confusion, and channel conflict. Centralizing GTM can raise the quality bar on positioning, funnel health, and field enablement—while GMs retain the voice of the customer and set product priorities. The key is a tight contract: who owns narrative, who owns quota, and how we arbitrate tradeoffs.
Managing pricing and packaging across a complex org is a system design problem. I establish a single authority for pricing strategy and guardrails, with clear input rights from GMs and Finance. We define canonical metrics for willingness to pay, price elasticity, bundle attach, and churn. This lets us run structured experiments while protecting long-term brand trust and ARR quality.
I put real weight on written principles. Examples of Square’s written principles remind me that great organizations reduce ambiguity by codifying how decisions get made. In my teams, we document decision rights (DACI/RACI), escalation patterns, and what “good” looks like for roadmaps, customer research, and launch criteria—so we don’t reinvent governance in every meeting.
How Square determines what each GM owns maps well to a pattern I use: define the customer journey first, then assign ownership in contiguous slices that minimize handoffs. If an interface is high-traffic or monetization-critical, it deserves a single accountable GM. Shared platforms (data, identity, payments) live in enablement groups with SLAs and portfolio-level success metrics.
Collaboration across GMs and products improves when we create durable seams. I use recurring GM councils, shared north-star metrics, and documented interface contracts. We align on joint bets for the year, budget for cross-org work, and maintain escalation rituals so debates are fast, respectful, and final.
Key lessons on planning and decision-making at scale: time-bound strategy, principle-led tradeoffs, and ruthless clarity on who decides. I anchor annual and quarterly planning in a brief that includes goals, constraints, risks, and assumptions. When we disagree, we escalate once, decide once, and document why—so we can move on without reopening settled questions.
Designing incentives across a massive org means aligning pay, promotions, and recognition to the outcomes we claim to value. I tie variable comp to a balanced scorecard: growth and retention, customer satisfaction, quality of execution, and platform health. If incentives reward only top-line ARR, we’ll get short-term wins at the expense of durability.
Two reasons GM structures go wrong: ambiguous decision rights and platform underinvestment. If GMs can’t tell what they truly own, or if shared services don’t meet their needs, the model will fail. I fix this by clarifying ownership in writing and by setting platform SLAs backed by leadership enforcement.
When it’s time to change the structure, I follow a disciplined playbook. 6 Step re-org walkthrough: Step 1: Triggering the re-org—document the triggers and the goals; Step 2: Sketching a proposed org design—present two to three viable options with tradeoffs; Step 3: Checking against key criteria—stress-test against strategy, customer journey, incentives, and interfaces; Step 4: Finalizing approach with leadership—drive alignment and decision in a single forum; Step 5: Planning comms—sequence messaging for managers, then teams, then partners; Step 6: Executing comms—deliver clear narratives, FAQs, and next steps on the same day.
Signals a re-org worked vs failed show up quickly: decision speed rises, escalations drop, and outcomes improve without heroics. If confusion persists, shadow processes form, or engagement declines, the design needs another pass. I run 30/60/90-day health checks and tune incentives or interfaces before small issues calcify.
I continue to learn from industry operators, including 5 lessons from Alyssa Henry, CEO at Square, that reinforce my own approach: design for clarity, empower accountable owners, write down how we work, invest in platforms early, and communicate like the strategy depends on it—because it does. When we treat org design as a product, we earn compounding execution and a culture built to scale.
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