Growth can introduce layers, coordination requirements and fragmented ownership while a business continues to perform. The challenge is determining which complexity is unnecessary and which is performing a function the organization still needs.
Uber recently announced changes intended to create what CEO Dara Khosrowshahi described as a simpler and faster organization. The company is reducing layers, simplifying team structures and consolidating ownership at a time when the business continues to perform strongly.
The situation raises a broader organizational question:
If an organization has grown more complex than it needs to be, how do you simplify it without disrupting what is already working?
A role can disappear without the work it performs disappearing. A layer can be removed without making decisions easier. And fewer teams do not necessarily mean fewer dependencies.
Before changing the organization, I would want to understand three things.
1. What is the complexity you want to remove currently compensating for?
An additional management layer, recurring coordination meeting or intermediary role may appear unnecessary. But it may also be compensating for unclear ownership, conflicting priorities, weak information flows or dependencies between teams.
Removing the mechanism without understanding the function it performs can cause the same problem to emerge somewhere else.
What I would examine
Start with what the role, layer or mechanism actually accomplishes rather than whether it appears efficient.
Where are decisions being mediated? Which teams depend on it to resolve competing priorities? What information moves through it? What happens when it is absent?
If the complexity is compensating for a deeper organizational problem, removing it does not address the underlying condition.
A coordination role compensating for fragmented ownership, for example, presents a different problem from a one that genuinely adds little value. They may look identical on an organization chart. They should not necessarily receive the same response.
2. When something is removed, where do its responsibilities and decisions go?
Removing a layer does not automatically redistribute the work performed within it.
Some decisions may move closer to the people with the relevant information. Others may move across functions or remain with more senior leadership.
Moving the responsibility is only part of the change. The person taking it on also needs the authority, information, capability and capacity to do so effectively.
What I would examine
Map the critical responsibilities and decisions before changing the structure.
Determine where each should reside based on accountability, proximity to relevant information and the consequences of the decision. Then consider whether the people taking them on have the authority, information, capability and capacity to do so effectively.
If they do not, the transition needs to account for that. Authority may need to change, capabilities may need to be developed, and new ways of working may need to become established.
Otherwise, decisions may simply migrate upward because the people below were never equipped to absorb them. You cannot simply ‘turn off the lights.”
3. Is the complexity in the hierarchy—or in how the work depends on other parts of the organization?
An organization can remove management layers and remain difficult to operate.
If several teams remain highly dependent on one another to deliver an outcome, the underlying coordination requirement remains. Flattening the hierarchy may simply expose that dependency rather than eliminate it.
What I would examine
Look at where work crosses organizational boundaries.
Which dependencies exist because ownership is fragmented? Which result from how teams have been structured? Which are inherent in the work itself?
Some dependencies may be reduced through clearer end-to-end ownership or different team boundaries.
Others cannot and should not be designed away. Where genuine interdependence remains, teams still need effective ways to work across those dependencies.
The objective is not to eliminate coordination. It is to distinguish what results from unclear ownership or structure from what the work genuinely requires.
What happens after the change matters
Removing roles, layers, or teams tells you what changed in the structure. What matters is whether the organization works better afterward.
Are fewer decisions being escalated? Is accountability clearer? Has the number of unnecessary handoffs declined? Does necessary coordination require less effort? Are leaders able to operate effectively with broader responsibilities? Are senior executives becoming less involved in operational decisions—or unexpectedly more involved?
The broader consideration
Simplification is attractive because the visible change can appear straightforward: remove a layer, consolidate teams, reduce coordination roles.
Something that appears to be unnecessary complexity may still be performing a necessary function. And that function may not always be obvious.
A role or layer may be providing leadership, judgment, advice or context that has become embedded in how the organization operates—something that is not always visible on an organization chart.
The question is whether what it provides is still needed and, if so, how it will be provided once the role or layer is removed.
The objective is not simply a smaller organizational structure.
It is an organization better able to make decisions, coordinate work and execute what the business requires.