Design the role before choosing the person.

Person-first organisation design creates permanent ambiguity.

A reliable employee is given additional responsibilities. A long-serving manager receives a larger title. Two roles are combined because hiring is difficult. These may be reasonable temporary decisions, but they become risky when the business never defines what the position itself must accomplish.

The role then changes with the individual. New employees cannot understand its boundaries, performance cannot be assessed consistently and leadership debates the person instead of the operating requirement.

Create a role charter before a job description.

1. Purpose: why the role exists.
2. Accountable outcomes: the results it must reliably produce.
3. Decision authority: what it can decide and approve.
4. Operating interfaces: employees, departments and external parties it depends on.
5. Evidence and KPIs: how performance becomes visible.
6. Capability: knowledge, judgement and management skills required.

Only then should leadership decide whether the role is full-time, combined, temporary, internal or externally recruited.

Assess fit separately from structure.

A candidate scorecard should compare evidence against the role charter. Technical experience may qualify someone for part of a role while leaving gaps in planning, people leadership, data discipline or customer judgement.

Where capability is promising but unproven, use a defined trial with limited authority, training and measurable outcomes. The trial should answer a specific question about fit; it should not quietly become a permanent appointment without review.

A role-design test

• Would this role still be necessary if the current person left?
• Can its three to five most important outcomes be stated clearly?
• Does it have enough authority to own those outcomes?
• Are combined responsibilities operationally related?
• Is there a workload or growth trigger for separating combined roles?