Graphic titled "Is your organization out of alignment?" with the subtitle "Warning signs that the parts of your organization may have drifted apart." Below is a chain with a broken middle link and the caption "When one link breaks, people fill the gap." Connor Claire, Org Design Toolkit Part 1.
organizational alignmentorganizational designnonprofitstrategy

Is Your Organization Out of Alignment?

Susan Underhill·2026-10-07

Organizational Design Toolkit: Part 1

I once led an organizational review for a community agency facing a major shift in how its services were funded. The staff were skilled, committed and genuinely liked their work. They had also become experts at catching each other's falling balls.

It looked like great teamwork. It was also a sign that the structure no longer matched how the work really got done.

Nothing was broken on its own. The structure, systems and culture had simply drifted out of step with the organization's new reality. When one link breaks, people fill the gap. The people holding it all together were at real risk of burning out.

The real issue is alignment

When an organization is struggling, the organizational chart is often the first thing leaders want to change. Sometimes that's the right call. But more often, the real issue is alignment: whether all the pieces of the organization still fit together.

Hardware and software have to fit together

Ron Carucci and Jarrod Shappell, writing in Harvard Business Review, describe an organization as "a living embodiment of a strategy." They talk about two sides that both have to line up. The hardware is your structure, processes, technology and governance. The software is your values, culture, leadership and the skills of your people. Their research suggests only about 10% of organizations get this alignment right.

For nonprofits, I would add one more piece to the picture: the funding model, mandate and community that shape everything else.

Nonprofits are under real pressure

The Ontario Nonprofit Network's 2025 State of the Sector survey found that 85% of nonprofits saw demand for their services grow last year. Only one in five can fully meet it. Half are struggling to recruit or keep staff, and half of those point to burnout and stress as a reason.

When pressure builds like this, any gap between how an organization is set up and how its work actually gets done becomes much harder to ignore.

Warning signs to watch for

The checklist below pulls together the warning signs I see most often. They fall into three groups: how the work is organized, how people work together, and the bigger picture of funding, mandate and community.

Checklist of warning signs that an organization is out of alignment, arranged around a diagonal chain with a broken middle link, captioned "When one link breaks, people fill the gap." How the work is organized: work falls between teams and no one is sure who owns it; staff rely on workarounds because processes don't fit the work; decisions stall while waiting for approval from the top; roles were built around people rather than the work. How people work together: staff are always catching each other's dropped balls; leaders are unsure of their role, or spend their time on work below it; teams don't know what other parts are doing; people are "waiting to see what happens." The bigger picture: your funding, mandate or community has changed, but your organization hasn't; good people are burning out or leaving. How to read it: if you checked three or more, your organization may be out of alignment. Look at how all the pieces fit together.

Look at the whole picture first

That's why every organizational review I lead starts with how all the pieces fit together, not with the boxes on the chart. Sometimes the structure does need to change. Sometimes the real fix is in the systems, the roles or the culture around it.

Next in this series: why design principles need to come before anyone draws a new box.