Starting with the Organizational Question

One unexpected takeaway from a recent conversation on The Org Design Podcast had nothing to do with my own answers. It came from Amy Springer’s questions.

Amy came to our conversation as the host of The Org Design Podcast and an organization design practitioner with experience across industries. Yet several of her questions felt immediately relevant to the work I do every day with higher education leaders.

The conversation reminded me of something a former Indiana University colleague, Dan Smith (Kelley School of Business Dean Emeritus, Professor Emeritus of Marketing, and Indiana University Foundation President and CEO Emeritus) used to say, “Higher education is great at talking about itself to itself.” That observation has stayed with me.

Reflecting on Amy’s questions made me wonder whether one expression of that tendency is our instinct to frame organizational questions first through a higher education lens.

An example came when Amy posed what she described simply as a sizing question: If you’re leading a team of 15 people or a general manager responsible for a team of 80, when should you begin thinking about and applying organization design principles? There was no mention of deans, provosts, or shared governance.

The answer was straightforward. It’s about strategic direction, regardless of size or even sector. The starting point is asking a different question: What value is the team intended to create, and is it organized to deliver on that purpose? That question applies just as readily to a marketing team at a large public research university as it does to a team in almost any other sector.

She also observed that marketing functions often experience organizational pressure before many other functions because they must respond simultaneously to changing strategy and changing markets.

Once again, the discussion began with a broader organizational insight before moving into the higher education context. The higher ed perspective emerged in my response: institutions have historically been less market-oriented than many other sectors, which helps explain why those pressures often feel especially acute.

The pattern arrived first, in plain terms. The sector explained why it stings, not why it exists.

Higher education’s context still matters enormously. Institutional missions, governance models, funding realities, stakeholder expectations, and organizational histories shape how leadership decisions are made and how change unfolds. Applying organization design well requires deep institutional understanding.

And that’s exactly one reason looking beyond our own sector matters so much. It reminds us that while our institutions are unique, many of the leadership and organizational questions we wrestle with are not. Perhaps that’s one of the most valuable leadership habits we can cultivate: learning broadly, recognizing enduring organizational principles, and applying them thoughtfully within the context of the institutions we serve.

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The conversation that prompted these reflections is embedded below. I’m grateful to Amy Springer for the invitation and for the thoughtful conversation.