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About the guest
Jules Siegel-Hawley is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Andes Advisory, specializing in organization design, people strategy, and transformational change. With a Doctorate in clinical social work from Columbia University and over 15 years of experience, she has led significant organizational transformations across diverse sectors, including tech startups and healthcare. Learn more about him on his expert page.
Summary
What if org design wasn’t a three-year consulting project but a living, breathing practice?
In this episode, Tim Brewer and Amy Springer sit down with Jules Siegel-Hawley, who has shaped job architecture and organizational systems at Doctors Without Borders and beyond. Jules shares how her background in clinical social work and acting led her into “cool HR,” why job architecture is the most high-stakes but foundational part of org design, and why leaders should treat organizational design as an ongoing rhythm rather than a big-bang transformation.
From managing the tension of titles, power, and compensation, to exploring the rise of AI-human ecosystems, Jules unpacks the evolving challenges of leadership, transparency, and collaboration. Whether you’re leading a startup or managing a division in a global enterprise, this episode will help you see org design not as a one-off project, but as a practice of constant iteration, clarity, and trust.
Show Notes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jules-siegel-hawley-52210274/
Transcript
[00:00:00] Tim Brewer: Welcome to the Org Design Podcast. My name's Tim Brewer, one of the co-hosts, I'm also joined by Amy Springer, and we are lucky to have Jules Siegel-Hawley here today with us.
[00:00:11] Amy Springer: Jules, thank you for joining us. How did you end up in org design? Do you even call it org design? What's your story and yeah, how did you end up on the Org Design Podcast?
[00:00:23] Jules Siegel-Hawley : I've recently started calling it org design. I used to call it _cool HR_ because I was like, I'm not a classic HR person. I'm a cool HR person. I'm trained in clinical social work, so really like, how to be a therapist. And I discovered in my training, I was working in a hospital at the time that I was with how the larger systems, the larger structures were impacting the individual patient.
And I was always trying to solve for that. And so when I left school, I immediately took a job at Doctors Without Borders, which was one of my dream organizations. And from there I've zigzagged my way through the organization working in different offices the world. And they are very interesting client when it comes to organization design. They're constantly evolving. There's a lot of change management that has to happen. And so I fell into this space, namely through job architecture, so really quite micro, I would say, looking at roles and accountabilities, getting into compensation strategy. But, I've realized that org design is a place where I can really look at the larger systems, the larger structures that impact the individual. And that is, I've said, extremely interesting to me.
[00:01:38] Tim Brewer: When we are thinking about org design, a lot of people leave off job architecture and becomes like the thing that's done by the HR team at the end. Tell us how starting from that point, leading to org design how do you think about it amongst the other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that you have to solve in org design, and why is it so important? Why is it so meaningful to think about things at a job level as well as the whole system?
[00:02:05] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yeah. It's incredibly technical and it's very high stakes, and so people tend to leave it alone. I got into it because I find it to be the hottest button conversation you can possibly have with an individual. And that's across the board, that's like universal. We're talking about title, we're talking about level, power, we're talking about money. And I, when I learned this, I was like, Ooh let's get more into that. I wanna be the person that's guiding those conversations. I would say that it really is the foundation, when people know what their role is in the organization, how it ties back up to the larger strategy. It really feeds in so seamlessly to how decisions are made, what the boundaries of your roles is, what your decision rights are. So I find people often start bigger and maybe a little bit softer. But when you start there, at this kind of micro job by job, role by role level, it really provides a solid foundation for you to be able to push off from and have some of those maybe more nebulous conversations.
[00:03:17] Tim Brewer: Yeah, that's super interesting and resonates with what we see as how job architecture, job design interacts with the rest of the discipline of org design. Thinking about roles, one of the things we observe quite often, particularly in organizations as they grow and change that people wear, we sometimes are referred to as hats within the organization. And what we should have mentioned, part of our audience, actually, a huge part of our audience is leaders in an organization that don't have any prior experience in org design, but have ended up becoming org designers by function of starting a company or taking on a leadership role or being the CEO of a larger mid-market organization. And so we're trying to think about our conversations sometimes in light of them, but we see this in a lot of organizations people end up by either intent or by neglect, wearing lots of hats within the organizations, and some people would call those different roles that they wear. How do you think about people doing multiple roles as an organization grows and changes. How do you help your clients understand that and architect around where a role might not be enough stuff to do for a full-time person or maybe is done across multiple different people. Talk to us about some of the challenges of that kind of role level architecture as it happens across teams.
[00:04:41] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yeah, I think it depends a much bigger problem if it's a much more mature organization. If you're a startup, it makes a lot more sense that you would be wearing multiple hats and not quite having that, that structure in place where you need to have a little bit more fluidity. And in general, I wanna make the comment, I think people worry that job architecture, when you build it, is going to slow you down. It's gonna be something clunky. It's gonna be prohibitive or inhibitive. And actually you can design it so that it's agile. It's creating the framework for you to actually move fast, to provide the safety and the security for you to, to be agile. So I, I don't see a problem when you're, especially when you're starting out, and I would say up till about 30 people, it makes sense that people would be wearing multiple hats. I think that's when you get into more of the people infrastructure. So job architecture, people infrastructure for me is looking at how are decisions made? How is collaboration taking place? What is the rhythm of the business? That's what kind of the next click that I would start looking at when people are wearing multiple hats. Because yeah, it's okay to be weaving in and out. There needs to be some kind of a through line where there's clear structure for these guys to be operating.
I do think it's more of an issue as you scale. You need to get, I think, more specific and make sure that people have clear definition, clear boundaries around what their role entails. That doesn't mean that it doesn't constantly evolve, it can but I would say that should happen on a quarterly basis.
You look around and your leadership team and you say, what's working? What's not working? What's changed since the last check-in? Where are there friction? And really start to design from there.
*Org* *design is not a project, it's a practice*. And so it's something that leaders should and you said that they often find themselves falling into the role. It's a capability. They should have the ability to start asking those questions and looking at this as a constant iteration. It's a product. You're iterating, you're testing, and your organization is in a constant evolution.
[00:06:57] Tim Brewer: Leads me to think about traditional org design, which is, every three years you have, you get really misaligned. Call up Accenture, Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group. They, promise to build you the most impressive and most expensive PowerPoint deck you'll ever receive in your entire life. You talked then about a pproaching this more like a system, tackling this, looking around every quarter seeing it as a always on org design process rather than a once every three years project. What do you think goes wrong with doing it the old way? And why in your mind does it need to be something that is built into the organization's rhythm on a quarterly basis?
[00:07:39] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yeah, it's been in the past seen as an HR deliverable, and I think that often in-house HR, looks to bring in an external consultant to do the thing because it comes with such high stakes. Again, we're talking about incredibly sensitive conversations and we're getting into risk. So when I used to implement this stuff at Doctors Without Borders, we always did a big risk analysis. What's the social, the legal, and the financial risk that's gonna come with this exercise. We've actually evolved as a society to start looking at organizations as living organisms. That need a constant iteration and constant sort of care and tending and that when you can train up your leadership and your managers to be able to be constantly having these conversations, thinking about things in this way, starting to question yourself about what's the org design problem here? Not like what's the problem with this person, but what's the org design problem and how do we solve for that? That changes the conversation and it makes it not a one time big bang moment, but a constant evolution, like I said. Yeah, I think it's a bit outdated, and it doesn't feel as transparent, it doesn't feel as organic as it can. Something that I wanna say is I find in my org design work when I come in and I'm working with organizations that have un undergone a lot of trauma or change, or they're lacking trust. The building the job architecture, the co-design of that is a really healing exercise. And when I've seen, I don't wanna name the big names, but of the big name firms come in and lead out these exercises. It's very top down, it's very cookie cutter and really you need to be working with and getting everybody involved in the process because when you start to define the vision, the strategy and like how it all falls into place, that's an incredibly empowering exercise that's transparent and will be much easier to implement .
The process itself is a real opportunity that I see is missed quite often, especially when you bring in these big firms. And it feels much scarier than it needs to because it's really asking some basic questions on a regular basis. What's working, what's not? Where are the frictions? Are our decision making channels still working? How is our communication highway? It's starting to think about things as a constant versus again this big bang moment.
[00:10:18] Amy Springer: Jules, in one of our earliest conversations on the podcast, our guest gave us the term healthy org design culture. Do you think with this newer, evolving approach, do you think you've seen that shift that some companies are trending towards having a healthy org design culture instead of that formally high tension, high stakes, stressful.
[00:10:44] Jules Siegel-Hawley : I've seen it more in the startup space because there's less sacred cows, if you will, and they really are coming at things with this kind of fresh, let's do it mindset and want to have that. It's the older, bigger organizations, that I think it's more of a mental shift for them to get there. But when you explain it to them, they get it. It's not, it's just, it's easier to get there I would say with smaller startup culture. Because I think frankly, these are risky conversations, risky exercise, or it's seen that way. And so the bigger companies, I think are more risk averse, if you will.
And so it they feel like we need to bring in these big consulting firms because they have the credibility and we have to answer it to the Board and all of these things. So the conversation, I think, is a bit more organic and dynamic when you're speaking with more of a startup, than if you're speaking with one of these big enterprises.
[00:11:49] Amy Springer: If someone was listening that was a leader in a bigger enterprise and the whole big enterprise wasn't going to start the process, do you think it would be possible for a divisional leader, someone with a few hundred people in their team to embrace that job architecture approach within a smaller part of their organization?
[00:12:11] Jules Siegel-Hawley : I hope so, I really hope so. I think that HR would need to be on board with them. And yeah I wouldn't leave HR out of the equation. And so my hope is that you have a strategic HR partner that can you through this, but yeah, I think for sure you can do it. I'm actually, I'm working on a engagement right now where we're just focused on one department. It's totally possible. It's totally possible. You wanna make sure that your CEO is informed of this. And hopefully it's almost seen as a pilot because what you do should have positive impact, positive results, and hopefully you can scale this approach across the organization.
But it's totally fine to start with one department, you have to do the things that you're in control of when you're a leader, and usually that's one piece of the pie. So totally all for that.
[00:13:04] Tim Brewer: I think it's so interesting what you've said about engaging people and getting buy-in. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, which is how, as humans, when we are threatened, we can have a very dramatic response and the higher the stakes something is, when it's your compensation, it could even be your job on the line. It could be the future credibility of your next job or your hireability. There's a lot on the table when you get into start having those sensitive conversations, whether it's just a job title and then that can sometimes feel like an insurmountable conversation to have whether it's a much harder, more high impact conversation. And I think sometimes individuals or as humans, we can get into rejecting an idea or pushing back on something as a protective mechanism. I do think that if you don't address that in how you go about org design or you just ignore that's important, you end up ultimately never changing anything 'cause everyone's just protecting, to that threat of, not just change, not in a silly way, but they're to genuine threat. And so they're gonna push to status quo. Which is why org design sometimes could be so difficult.
One of the things that seems to be an imminent impact to everyone in the workforce is AI and robotics and we're seeing that appear a lot more this year in the news. Not only impacting way we go about individuals designing jobs, and I'm gonna, I'd love you to expand on that a little bit, but also maybe in how org design is done and the direction you are talking about, moving to more kind of always on org design or seeing it more as a system is gonna be the only way possible in a kind of post AI world where things are moving so quickly that the old way of project based, reactive kind of org design won't keep up. But coming back t o the impact on individual jobs and job design, are you thinking about discussing, talking with others about job design in the shadow of AI impacting how people work to the benefit and multiplying the potential, but also potentially threatening their jobs as well. What's on in your space around AI?
[00:15:34] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yeah. I like how you said in the shadow of AI, it's very dramatic, but it's also a very dramatic thing what's happening. It's shocking.
[00:15:42] Tim Brewer: I, it may be it's a wait and in some ways right?
[00:15:47] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Totally. So there's a new conversation where we're not even calling it organizations anymore. We're calling it ecosystems because it's the tech, the people, the tech human ecosystem and how they're gonna be working together. You're gonna have AI agents joining your team. You're gonna be managing AI agents. I think a lot of CEOs in the tech space are coming out and saying. They're gonna take all the jobs, no more hiring unless you can prove that AI can't do the thing. Personally, I think that there's a co-intelligence that we need to be tapping into.
The need for humans is going to be there. It's not gonna go away. And even, you were talking about the need to be able to have kind of sensitive conversations around these decisions, that's a human thing. You don't wanna talk to a robot about your new title or your new, like that's not, humans are there to bring their empathy, to bring their mindset, to feel the vibes in the boardroom and to act accordingly. And So my hope, and maybe this will calm some of the anxiety, my hope is to really make AI a partner. They are gonna be great at writing job descriptions, let me tell you with the right prompts and things like this, which is probably the most tedious part of the job architecture. But, we need to come together and partner in a co-intelligence way where humans bring what they're able to do, which is empathize, build trust, build relationships, and the AI can come and bring what they're able to do, which is synthesize a lot of information quickly, identify key points, write a killer follow up email, things like this. They can come together and they can enhance what the human is able to do. I think that jobs are gonna become strategic. I think that it's gonna create space for the human to do more interesting deep dive work, less administrative burden, less, less busy work.
Yeah, there is gonna be, I think, a painful transition as we get there. And there isn't a template for how we're supposed to do this. Even if people are saying that they have one, it's not tested, I'm positive. So we have to figure out what this looks like. But I don't think this is the end of the workforce. It is the end of the workforce as we know it, but it's not like your job is eliminated. It really needs to be something where we figure out how we can leverage each other to create, the co-create, the new landscape.
[00:18:18] Tim Brewer: So you talked a little bit about your background, you didn't start life thinking, I'm gonna become an org designer. What did you, when you young, at school and you the teachers would be like, what's Jules gonna do? Was your career path prior to ending up as an org designer?
[00:18:37] Jules Siegel-Hawley : No one's asked me that before. I usually, I keep this my little secret. I was an actor or that was my dream. I wanted to be an indie film darling. I was really good at putting myself in other people's shoes. My teachers would always say that I was a total ham, and was a big feeler, very empathetic. And I ended up going to NYU Tisch for acting.
I don't really talk about 'cause I worry, it hurts my credibility, but in many ways Acting is, it's, fascinating and it's all about the study of the human condition and how people tick and it's about high stakes conversations always and looking at the underlying subtext and objectives of people. And honestly, it was a great primer for everything that I'm doing now.
[00:19:25] Tim Brewer: That's very cool. We appreciate you sharing your secret.
[00:19:29] Amy Springer: I actually think we've had a few actors who have become org designers. There is a special magic, I think, as you say, in that human connection and the big part of org design is honoring the people part of organizations and not forgetting them. And great facilitation skills.
[00:19:46] Tim Brewer: Jules, you also live in Brussels, but where is your accent originally
[00:19:50] Jules Siegel-Hawley : gosh, thank you for asking me these questions that no one asks me. I'm from Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
[00:19:57] Tim Brewer: Richmond, Virginia
[00:19:57] Jules Siegel-Hawley : born and raised. I left when I was 18. But I don't have, my family has accents. My, my mom, especially, my friends at my wedding, were like, whoa, your whole family has this, like southern drawl. And I can get more of it when I'm speaking with them. But in general I think it was my acting training. I have an American accent is what people tell me. Now that I'm here, I'm just very American. But no one would say,
one thinks I'm from the south.
[00:20:24] Amy Springer: You did say that Doctors Without Borders moved you around a lot. Is that how you ended up where you are?
[00:20:30] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yeah, they have a big headquarters here in Brussels. I implemented job architecture and our projects all over the world. I think I did 13 countries in a little like, 14 months, and I was flying so many places Ukraine to Malawi to Guinea, to Congo, to South Sudan, to Central African Republic. And it was fascinating because I was able to take this common vision, this common architecture, and apply it in very disparate contexts. And when you're talking about the conversations that you have, depending on the culture, I mean in some of these places, it's universal, but in some places it was more tribal.
And so level was incredibly sensitive. It was really critical that you had a common logic to tie things back to in these conversations because it was taken very personally. And I don't think that's actually any different than anywhere else in the world. But there was definitely higher stakes when you're going and talking to a driver in Congo, saying that you're going from a level five to a level three, and here's why. There is just a weight to those conversations, and you had to be able to explain why, what that logic was in a way that they would I guess buy into it, which was no small feat.
[00:21:50] Tim Brewer: An everyday leader sitting, listening to the podcast today, how would you describe job architecture? what does that mean inside a traditional org, how would you describe that at a dinner party?
[00:22:03] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yeah. I say it's the common language that that connects an organization , it creates the coherence. So in the case of Doctors Without Borders, what I used to always say when I had to explain this 'cause people would immediately think that I was there talking about compensation, and it's actually different.
It feeds into compensation eventually, but the job architecture is its own system, its own logic, its own structure. What I would say is you would be working in Malawi or working in Turkey or working in Iraq and a nurse would be called different things, they would have different accountabilities, doing different things.
And so we weren't able to, on the backend, do any sort of workforce analysis, the reporting was super funky. We just weren't all speaking the same language. And so with the job architecture that we implemented, you were able to say, a nurse is a nurse, they are at level five and they are accountable for X, Y, and Z.
And there was a common language that was attached to each role, the role of a nurse to say, this is what every nurse is accountable for. That's what's called a role profile. You could add to that to create a job descriptions that it was more context specific. But at the end of the day, we all knew then that a nurse was accountable for this small laundry list of accountabilities or of responsibilities, whatever you wanna say. And that creates a common language where we're all talking about this, the same thing. And it just, it creates the foundation.
[00:23:36] Amy Springer: Yeah, the bit I picked up on that you mentioned earlier, Jules, is the autonomy it gives people that actually, it feels counterintuitive, but when people are really clear on what they're there to do, they can run and they can
[00:23:50] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yes.
[00:23:50] Amy Springer: and really achieve a lot.
[00:23:52] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Faster. Yes. Yeah. It's it creates clarity in the chaos, clarity is kind, and so it, it really, it provides the initial framework that you need. And then again, you can keep building on that. But it really helps, and this is why I don't think that hierarchy is obsolete, and that flat organizations are the answer.
You can have a flat org, but there needs to be a lot of clarity. You need to still have the lines and really clear protocols for how decisions are made. Without that, it's a lot of running around in circles and a lot of noise. I say that job architecture and really just structure in general, y'all, it quiets the noise and actually what you find, especially in the big transformations or change, people point and say, I wasn't in this meeting, or I wasn't informed of this decision, or I don't agree with this decision and I'm a decision maker, when they're not. What you find is when you provide the frame for people to operate inside of, it quiets down the noise. It doesn't reduce the friction, the friction needs to be there because there are real conversations that need to be happening around how we're operating and how we're organized.
If you provide the structure, people can have very rich conversations with in inside of that frame and have them in a safe way. You can do this safely. And I always think about things being safe versus unsafe because when you're talking about people, Things can really explode, especially when you're talking about such a hot button topic. So providing scientific clarity and process to this is critical. And then you'll be able to run really effing fast.
[00:25:30] Tim Brewer: I want to leave that as the tail, but I'm really interested if those listening to the show. How do they know that they've got an organization or a problem that suits your style of consulting and how do they get in contact with you? What kind of organizations are a good fit for your style of work?
[00:25:50] Jules Siegel-Hawley : So any organization that's undergoing evolution is a fit. I will say that I am drawn to a collaborative approach. I think that it's much more productive to have a communication highway and bring in people at all levels of the organization to contribute to what the new vision, what the new framework will be, what the new architecture will be. And I have found, especially when I was working in the US healthcare that some organizations were like, whoa, like it was it that wasn't something that they were used to. And that, for me, it was how I was raised, like I said, where I was like, collaboration is the thing, no? And anyway, so if you're not prepared to have open, transparent conversations, bring people in at all levels, I might not be your cup of tea, and that's totally fine. I will say, I believe in hierarchy. I believe in someone being a decision maker and making the call. I just believe that's a very clear and transparent process. Honestly, anybody I, I can work with, I just, I think a collaborative approach is really, this is an opportunity to create something new. And you don't wanna do that in a top down fashion 'cause it won't jive. It's not gonna, it's not gonna stick otherwise.
[00:27:08] Amy Springer: And they could contact you via LinkedIn
[00:27:11] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Yes, sorry.
[00:27:11] Amy Springer: Or,
[00:27:12] Jules Siegel-Hawley : jules@andesadvisory.co is one way.
[00:27:16] Amy Springer: Cool.
[00:27:17] Jules Siegel-Hawley : also reach me on LinkedIn. Jules Siegel-Hawley is my LinkedIn handle.
[00:27:21] Tim Brewer: Awesome. We'll also make sure we put contact details in the show notes and we'll stick up an org design expert page for you as well on our content site. We'd love to do that and connect you with the audience of the podcast as well. We've really loved having you on the show, Jules, we really appreciate you coming along and spending some time with us. And from me, Amy and the Org Design Podcast, we appreciate your t ime and attention and sharing today, and I'm sure the audience has appreciated it as well.
[00:27:48] Jules Siegel-Hawley : Thank you.
[00:27:49] Amy Springer: Bye
Functionly empowers organizations to navigate the complexities of organizational design by providing a framework that fosters clarity and collaboration among team members. With its robust job architecture capabilities, Functionly helps define roles and responsibilities, ensuring that everyone understands their contributions to the overall strategy. This clarity not only enhances individual performance but also facilitates meaningful conversations around job design, enabling leaders to adapt and evolve structures as their organizations grow. By integrating AI and other technological tools, Functionly allows teams to remain agile, continuously iterating and improving their organizational practices, ultimately leading to healthier, more effective workplaces.
