By *Ivan Reusse, Head of Leadership Development at Grant Alexander

The Hidden Cost of Unclear Organisations

A few months ago, I met the managing director of an industrial SME in the Lausanne region. Eighty employees, a healthy order book, and a team he himself described as “competent and committed.” And yet, he was exhausted. Decisions were dragging on. Meetings multiplied without leading anywhere. Some of his managers were treading on each other’s toes over issues no one had clearly assigned. Others were waiting for his green light on trade-offs they could — and should — have settled themselves.

His immediate diagnosis? “I need to hire better.”

My diagnosis, after spending a few hours inside his organisation? That was not the problem.

Talent is not enough when the environment is unclear

Here is a reality I observe with increasing frequency in Romandy SMEs: employees are competent. Often highly competent. But they operate in an environment where no one knows exactly who decides what, how far each person’s responsibility extends, or when information should be escalated to management.

This lack of clarity is rarely the result of bad intent. It is the natural by-product of growth. A company of fifteen people runs on instinct, proximity and shared common sense. When it grows to fifty, then a hundred employees, those informal mechanisms no longer hold. Roles that were never written down become grey areas. Decisions once made around a kitchen table now require a framework. The problem is that most leaders invest heavily in skills development — training, coaching, recruitment — without ever addressing the structure within which those skills are meant to operate. They sharpen the tools without clarifying the worksite.

When ambiguity gets expensive

Take a concrete example. In an IT services company I recently supported, three project managers were regularly working with the same clients without any clearly defined scope between them. The result: duplication, contradictory messages to clients, and a great deal of energy spent on internal coordination rather than value creation. None of the three was incompetent. All three were frustrated. And the director spent a significant part of his time arbitrating conflicts that a simple clarification of roles would have prevented entirely.

This kind of situation is not anecdotal. It is systemic. And it carries a real cost — in time, energy, staff turnover, and sometimes lost clients.

What clarity changes in practice

Clarifying an organisation does not mean producing yet another organisational chart. It means answering three simple questions that many companies have never formally asked: who decides what, and up to what level? Who is accountable for which outcome? And when is it legitimate — even expected — to decide without escalating to management?

When those questions receive shared answers, something shifts: people dare to decide. Meetings get shorter. The energy that used to dissipate in internal coordination moves towards what really matters — the client, the product, performance.

In the Lausanne company I mentioned at the outset, we hired no one. We spent two days clarifying the decision-making scope of the executive team, defining what should reach the CEO and what should no longer. Six months on, he sleeps better. And his managers finally feel equal to the role they are being asked to play.

The real question to ask

Before opening a new recruitment process, before commissioning yet another leadership training programme, ask yourselves this: do my employees truly know what is expected of them — not in broad terms, but in the everyday decisions they face?

If the answer is uncertain, the problem is probably not a lack of talent.

It is a lack of clarity. And that can be fixed.

*About the author: Trained as a sociologist and economist, Ivan Reusse brings 18 years of experience in multinational companies, where he led industrial operations in the fragrance and pharmaceutical sectors across the EMEA region. He later moved into strategy consulting and now serves as Swiss Director of the Leadership Development practice at Grant Alexander, a consulting and HR services group specialising in executive search and leadership development. Driven by a deep interest in the complexity of human dynamics and the strategic challenges of organisations, he works with senior leaders on developing their leadership and transforming their structures.

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