AUA: How Do You Measure the ROI of Org Design?

Summary

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Episode Summary: "AUA: How Do You Measure the ROI of Org Design?"

Podcast: At Work with The Ready
Hosts: Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin
Date: January 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this Ask Us Anything (AUA) mini-episode, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin tackle a listener's complex question: How do you measure the return on investment (ROI) of organization (org) design with a client? The pair dig into why the ROI discussion is often fraught, how The Ready approaches value measurement, and offer practical ways to align org design work with what truly matters to clients. The conversation is candid, revealing, and provides insight into both the challenges and opportunities leaders face when seeking to quantify change initiatives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Awkwardness and Complexity of ROI in Org Design [00:19–01:34]

• Rodney jokes about the impossibility of the question, highlighting how fraught ROI conversations can be.
• They note that ROI discussions can range from energizing explorations of value to "demoralizing" debates about quarterly cost savings.
  • Quote:
    • Sam (00:36): "If the latter is the framing on an ROI conversation around org design, you're just going to have a bad time."
• The duo flags that starting a partnership with ROI as the first and central question can be a red flag, if not necessarily a deal breaker.
  • Quote:
    • Sam (01:26): "It’s not a deal breaker, but it is a bit of a red flag."

2. Aligning with What Matters to the Client [01:35–04:42]

• Sam and Rodney stress that org design ROI should link directly to organizational goals, not treat transformation as a side project.
• Org design’s results should be measured against the very metrics the organization already values—not side metrics or generic engagement scores.
  • Quote:
    • Sam (01:57): "It’s to do the things that you already care about better."
• Rodney describes her user-led approach: let the client establish goals and then use org design so they can better achieve them—even if the consultant wouldn’t choose those priorities.
  • Quote:
    • Rodney (02:22): "You tell me what you’re trying to do and I’ll do the work on the organization so you can do it."
• The ROI of their work is seen in practical improvements: reduced cycle times (e.g., faster menu production, quicker factory output, software release speeds), error reduction, etc.
• Rodney pushes back on measuring org design effectiveness via separate, culture-only metrics (“I’m not doing trust for trust’s sake”), emphasizing shared accountability for what matters to the client.
  • Quote:
    • Rodney (03:57): "I'm not doing trust for trust's sake. We're fixing the org so that it does what you want it to do."

3. Tracking Leading Indicators and Making Value Visible [04:43–06:21]

• Sam suggests org designers can bring creative thinking to ROI by identifying leading indicators (e.g., better meetings, faster decisions) that drive lagging business results.
  • Quote:
    • Sam (05:10): "...having more effective meetings... those are leading indicators that lead to the things that you care about."
• Rodney describes building dashboards that track both org design practices and outcomes. While correlation may not be perfect, teams most engaged in new practices often advance more toward their own metrics.
  • Quote:
    • Rodney (05:50): "...the teams that were furthest along in the moves were seeing more progress against their stated aims. And that, I think that is powerful to a leader because they want impact for their money."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sam (00:36): "If the latter is the framing on an ROI conversation around org design, you're just going to have a bad time."
• Sam (01:26): "It’s not a deal breaker, but it is a bit of a red flag."
• Sam (01:57): "It’s to do the things that you already care about better."
• Rodney (02:22): "You tell me what you’re trying to do and I’ll do the work on the organization so you can do it."
• Rodney (03:57): "I'm not doing trust for trust's sake. We're fixing the org so that it does what you want it to do."
• Sam (05:10): "...having more effective meetings... those are leading indicators that lead to the things that you care about."
• Rodney (05:50): "...the teams that were furthest along in the moves were seeing more progress against their stated aims. And that, I think that is powerful to a leader because they want impact for their money."

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Important Timestamps

• 00:19 — Listener question: "How do you talk about ROI of org design?" The challenge of the topic.
• 01:34 — The risk of ROI-first clients and why this can be a warning sign.
• 02:20 — The Ready’s philosophy: tie org design to what the client values and needs.
• 03:57 — Pushback on using generic engagement metrics; re-centering accountability.
• 04:42 — Using leading indicators to support the value case for org design.
• 05:50 — Dashboarding org design practices and their correlation to progress.

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Overall Tone and Takeaways

Rodney and Sam keep the tone practical, candid, and a bit irreverent, poking fun at consulting cliches but staying earnest about their impact. Their message is clear: ROI in org design is real and compelling if you look for it over longer time horizons and connect it directly to business metrics that matter—not through contrived or abstract measures. Through this lens, org design isn’t a “soft” investment—it’s the lever for business performance, as long as outcomes are what drive the measurement.

Transcript

[A]

Hey everyone. Welcome back to OrkwithReady. I'm Sam Sperlin and I'm joined as always by Rodney Evans.

[B]

Hi, Sam.

[A]

Every other week we're tackling one tough, thought provoking listener question and sharing a few ideas that might help. Let's dive in. Rodney, what have you got for us this week?

[B]

Okay, Sam, this is a fun one. How do you talk about ROI return on investment of ORG design with a client? There isn't any. You don't. I'm just kidding.

[A]

Shortest. Shortest AUA episode to date.

[B]

Next question.

[A]

No, so the, the big inhale and exhale that I just did there is. Because obviously this conversation is a whole bucket of worms. And depending on kind of the assumptions that the client is bringing to how they like to think about roi, it can go really productively and be a great conversation about value and what it looks like for an organization to work better. And it can be a really demoralizing conversation about how much money is he going to save me by the end of the quarter.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And if the latter is the framing on an ROI conversation around ORG design, you're just going to have a bad time. And for us, I think a lot of times, I mean, I think one of the things that the ready has gotten better at over the years is early business development conversations kind of sniffing out if the ROI conversation is like the very first thing that we're going to talk about in a potential partnership. It's like, I mean, it's not a deal breaker, but it is a bit of a red flag.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I just put that out there as like an initial kind of thought about roi. That being said, obviously there's incredible return on investment in the ORG design stuff that we're talking about. If you are willing to look at it at a time horizon greater than a quarter, which I think should not be a radical idea for an organization that maybe has been around for 50 years or something. And, and that metrics that matter should be to the org design work, to the transformation work, should be the metrics that matter to the organization. Generally we're not doing it as like a fun side thing. It's to do the things that you already care about better. So I think you'll talk a little bit more about the idea of like having separate metrics is probably not the path that you want to go down.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's funny because this sort of relates to just generally like product thinking and like user led ORG design. I generally want to sign up for what matters to them. So Generally speaking, you know, like I keep saying it on this podcast, but it's true. Generally speaking, my posture, you know, with a C level client is you tell me what you're trying to do and I'll do the work on the organization so you can do it. Like it's very like the Deming quote. Like, that's the thing. And what's very liberating about that is that I don't need to necessarily agree at all with what they're trying to do. Like, you know, we've been brought in to do plenty of OP model work that we've been like, you shouldn't do this first, you should do something else first. And they're like, no, no, it's odd model. And we're like, okay. And then at the end they feel like they have a very well designed and principled and thoughtful OP model and like, that is the ROI for them. They got it for a fraction of what they would have paid a large consultancy and they got it done in a participatory way and they how to flex it as they experiment with it. And like, do I always think starting with outmodel is a good idea? I don't. It doesn't matter. It's not my company and so I want to sign up for what matters to them. And for me, in projects, you know, often it's looked like shortened cycle times. Like the cycle time. Anything from like, I've been in a project where they're reducing the days to produce a menu, to reducing the days that it literally takes to make pills in a factory, to reducing the cycle time for software releases, to error reduction, like, whatever that exact is really focused on. I'm like, the ROI is getting them that through organizational design, through different moves. And I frankly don't want to be put in the camp of like, oh, that's like capital B business work. And then like, we're going to measure your stuff based on the fucking employee engagement survey. I'm like, no, thank you. I'm not doing trust for trust's sake. We're fixing the org so that it does what you want it to do. So I really want to stay like grounded and rooted and honestly feel the shared accountability with the client for what they're trying to achieve, rather than like having my own secret agenda, which frankly in our line of work is pretty easy to do.

[A]

Yeah, I do think there's a fun kind of creative aspect that we often will bring to these conversations, which is around leading indicators that the client is probably not thinking about. So I'm thinking of things like, you know, a lot of times we're doing stuff with meetings and they're. I think it's not hard to make the case that, you know, having more effective meetings where we are able to make decisions faster and if we are able to put some metrics around that those are leading indicators that lead to the things that you care about.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that is a conversation that is worth having, I think, to get leaders thinking about what are the actual leading indicators in things like how we make decisions and how we meet and how we look at our workflows or collaborate that build the case or that build up to these kind of more objective outcomes down the road.

[B]

Totally. One of the longest projects I did, I made a dashboard of, like, the things that we were basically, like, the. The things we were doing in each team. Like, this team has a strategy stack and this team has an operhythm, and this team has a raft of experiments that they're tracking. And I made a dashboard that basically showed, like, how far along they were in the practice of those, like, sort of on one side of the line and then, like, their own metrics and how they were moving on the other side. And it's like, can you create perfect correlation? No. But what we found in that project was the teams that were furthest along in the moves were seeing more progress against their stated aims. And that, I think that is powerful to a leader because they want impact for their money. Cool.

[A]

All right, that is it for this mini. If you've got a question of your own, hit us up at pot podcast.

[B]

Afteraddy.Com we will see you back next week for a full episode of At Work with the Ready. Thank you for being a listener.