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About the guest
Robert L. Stevens is an Organization Design Practitioner and Developer at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with over 30 years of distinguished service in the Department of Defense. A retired U.S. Naval Officer based in Georgia, he has a global perspective shaped by his family's journey across four continents. Rob is also a community organizer and executive board member with Global Outreach International, known for linking strategic initiatives with practical execution. Learn more about him on his expert page.
Summary
In this episode of the Org Design Podcast, recorded live at the Organization Design Forum’s Festival, hosts Tim Brewer and Amy Springer sit down with Robert Stevens, retired U.S. Navy officer turned federal org design leader.
Robert shares how he discovered he’d been practicing org design long before he knew the name, and why true organizational change is about much more than “lines and boxes.” From uncovering hidden leadership gaps, to building communication plans that prevent confusion, to the power of simply listening—Robert provides practical insights drawn from decades of service and transformation work.
Whether you’re a first-time leader, a seasoned executive, or simply curious about how to make organizations truly work for people, this conversation is packed with lessons on authenticity, courage, and systems thinking.
Show Notes
Transcript
[00:00:00] Tim Brewer: Welcome to the Org Design Podcast.
We're recording live from the Organization Design Forums Festival. I have cohost Amy Springer joining me, Amy, thank you so much for coming along.
Today, we're fortunate enough to have Robert Stevens with us. I am just going to call him Rob until he tells me I am not allowed to do that anymore because I'm Australian shorten everything and I think that's like the friendly way to go. Rob, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast. Why don't we start with how on earth did you get into org design and what was the journey to get there for you?
[00:00:33] Robert Stevens: Thank you, I'm delighted to be here. I met your team yesterday and it was, you know they have such a wonderful spirit, and I think that's important and those are the kinds of things and people that we gravitate towards. And so, I am a retired U. S. Navy, naval officer. I spent 30 years serving my nation. And I will tell you how did I come into org design?
I was doing org design before I even knew that it was org design. I didn't learn these terms until I think two years ago. Just two years ago. And the reason I learned them, I was in a job, I was a fleet readiness officer up in Norfolk, Virginia, and I received an email from this organization inviting me to apply for a position. The position was located, they said, in North Carolina, Texas, Washington D. C. and Kansas City. I wasn't interested in going to any of those locations. I ignored the email. Two weeks later, I got another email. . Then they call, we set up, we talk. I said what is this job all about? And how did you guys find me? Oh, we saw your resume and we looked at your resume and you have a lot of work in here that is related to org design, related to workforce shaping. Oh, I didn't even realize, what is that? What is that? So they explained to me what it was and, fast forward, I started working with this organization within the federal government doing org design work. Didn't know what the terms were, but the work is the same.
[00:02:28] Tim Brewer: Awesome. It's great to have you on the show. Robert, our audience is predominantly non org designers. Although there's definitely a few out there like you are org design geeks, or doing a lot of that style of work and just don't realize it yet. Maybe we come back to why you need to do that work in the first place or what happens when that work is not done well.
So at the moment in your work or when you've done work in the past or worked with teams in the past and no one's thought about the organization structure, what kind of symptoms do you see or what things do you see that highlight for you that some digging needs to be done or maybe the organization structure is not supporting what it's there to do?
[00:03:11] Robert Stevens: That's a fair question. The in the symptoms vary. They run from a lack of understanding of the direction that the organization is going in. They have a lack of understanding, there's a role clarification that's required. Missing meeting mission. Why are we not meeting mission? Workload imbalance and a whole lot. There are a number of things, but we don't know that going in and oftentimes the client doesn't know that they're asking for, or that they even need an org design because we spent a lot of time educating the client on what is org design.
So people have a different interpretation of what org design is. We take a systems approach. We look at a number of different aspects within that system before we come up with some type of org design solution, because the truth of the matter is that when you're talking about org design, it's really about the process, it's about the systems. It's about the people understanding the systems. The communications that's taking place within that system. So once we listen to what they're describing to us, then we listen for certain things and then, Oh, and we can't leave out the biggest part which most people think, Oh we need an org design. We need to do something. We need to redesign our organization.
But a big piece of that, which is often overlooked is that leadership factor. And sometimes you don't need an org design, what you need is an attentive, engaged, listening leader, who's hearing what the employees are saying on the deck plate that are doing the work and responding to it, not just listening, but responding to the outcry of the folks who are doing the work. So sometimes, we have to say you don't really need, during our discovery, we'll find these things out. Sometimes we have to say, you don't really need an org design, here's what, some of the things that you really need to do.
And that might include a robust communications plan, how do you communicate with people? How often do you communicate with your team? What methods are you using? Town halls, one on ones, all hands. How are you doing it? Asynchronously? Synchronously? Are you clear in your communications? Do your people understand? So a lot of these type things we ask before we move forward into a n org design process because it is a robust event if you're going to engage in it, you gotta come alongside people. You gotta ask people to give you a lot of documents so that you can learn about the organization. Then you have to sit down with people, talk with them, give them. Some org design may require me to sit beside you and observe what you're doing so that I can understand, so that I can better articulate and come up with some type of solution to recommend to you.
I've said a lot right there, but org design is more complex than just going in, rearranging an organizational chart, which some people think, that's all I can say.
[00:06:35] Tim Brewer: Yeah, just lines and boxes. But your saying it's definitely not just lines and boxes. You talked before about some of your history and where you started your experience in life. Is your work now limited to kind of one area where you're working with the same team over and over, or are you really working across like an internal consultant where you're actually going Helping out lots of different teams at the same time. What style of work are you doing now?
[00:07:00] Robert Stevens: With the agency that I am with we are a reimbursable arm so that means that we get contracts or interagency agreements with other federal agencies So that could range from a cabinet level position To a military organization, to a science organization, FEMA, those type organizations that people are familiar with, within DOD or outside of DOD.
So any federal agency that feels that they need help with not just org design, but performance management, change management, those things are a part of org design. Yeah. Workload assessment, workload analysis, those kinds of pieces. They've wrapped up in org design as well. So interesting.
[00:07:58] Amy Springer: The people you're working with, is that found through data and surveys, or are you finding that leaders within those organizations are feeling, the tension, and they're aware something needs to be addressed. How do you end up with your work, basically?
[00:08:12] Robert Stevens: Some of that could be word of mouth, we did a workload analysis with the, the Naval War College, and one of the comments was saying, "Hey, we need to, I know that the Army War College is dealing with some of the same things You know, we're gonna tell them about what you've done for us and that type of work".
So some of this word of mouth, some of his people know about a lot of it is, within the D. C. Area, there's a lot of networking that goes on and people know this person and they say, "Oh, can you help me with this? Oh, we know that you guys do this". And so a lot of that is, is how the work comes about.
So we call them lead calls, so someone will call us and describe, and that's another challenge too, sometimes we have to help them describe what their problem really is, they think that the problem is this, but ultimately once we listen here, it turns out to be something else, so some of those org design projects that are calls that we receive, They're not really org design calls. They may be performance management. They may be classification, they may be something else, so But how do we receive it? People generally reach out to us because years of hearing What this organization does and how we do it. That's really cool.
[00:09:36] Amy Springer: Sounds like step one is a lot of listening, Maybe some counseling,
[00:09:41] Robert Stevens: Yes, listening. And one of the things that I've learned over the course of my career is that listening is a skill. But what are you really saying to me?
Sometimes I can't grasp the right word to articulate to you. So I use the word that's conveniently available to me as close to what I think. So we have a process of discovery questions. We ask those discovery type questions to help them. "Oh yeah. That's what I'm trying to say". We drilled down on what they are describing to us.
[00:10:18] Amy Springer: I guess it's exciting to hear that there's a position such as yours in such a large, old organization. There must be so much entrenched behavior and understanding of how things work. I guess I'd love to hear more about that experience then of working in org design in an organization like yours. Do you find resistance or people are really excited and just ready for that help?
[00:10:44] Robert Stevens: I think we spend a lot of time educating people about what org design is, even within our agency, as large as it is.
There are some some misperceptions about what org design is. So one of the things that we're doing is we're developing an Org Design guide book.
[00:11:03] Tim Brewer: Oh, cool.
[00:11:04] Robert Stevens: To teach people within the agency in the clients that we are going to be interacting with. Step one, module one, module two. And subsequent to that we're building in what we call a org design workshop because a lot of clients says, can you teach us this?
And we can teach some of the principles of it. Org design has been around for decades and decades. It's been around a long time so we can teach some of the principles. But in teaching those principles, one of the things we often emphasize is when we are talking with leaders, one, we want to make sure that we're talking with the decision makers. Two, you have to have the will and the courage to make the change that's necessary. And once you have the will and the courage and the decision is made, now we must develop a excellent communication rollout plan to tell people what we're doing.
[00:12:06] Amy Springer: Yeah, so you guys are creating all these wonderful resources for people, but you mentioned you only even knew what org design was a couple of years ago.
[00:12:15] Robert Stevens: Right.
[00:12:16] Amy Springer: Do you have any stories you could share with us from your career? Obviously you were experienced, you were naturally inclined to that kind of work and creating a great place to work. Do you have any stories from early in your career or as you moved along of when you saw maybe it done badly, or maybe a really good experience.
[00:12:36] Robert Stevens: I don't know if they're good stories. They're just experiences that, I was on a team where back in the mid nineties, this team was supposed to go out and look at organizations across the nation. And so the premise was, is that, why do you need ten garages if you only have five cars? So you go in and you look at those organizations and you decide if, um, can we combine this work or can we shut this agency down because we have the support over here?
Yeah. But long story short is that, too many folks had constituencies in those areas that was going to impact and so we got shut down. So it, that's those things happen. That's story right there, I thought that job was very interesting. because we were finding out what people were doing and seeing how we could reallocate resources and things of that nature.
But the climate at the time didn't support that. So we got shut down. We got shut down. So those are just some of the things that, I remember, working in the Pentagon and we did a, the Navy staff did a complete organizational realignment and I just remember the influx of confusion it wasn't rolled out quite very well. The communications plan didn't work very well. It was like a top down mandated kind of change, and so people didn't embrace it very well. Some of the things that I learned from that experience has helped me in terms of helping clients today. The communications piece, making sure people understand how they're going to be impacted. What does this mean to me? Am I losing my job? What do I have to do differently? All of those things. I learned that from seeing some failed org designs or change management executed or implemented. There are a lot more Navy stories, but they're probably not appropriate for this audience.
[00:14:50] Amy Springer: Understandable.
[00:14:52] Tim Brewer: For someone who's finding, I'm sure you deal with a lot of first time leaders or people that are just coming up through the ranks or through government and end up leading a very large group of people much larger than their experience previously maybe, and you talked about leadership. When you're sitting down with leaders and helping first time leaders over that huge change of working, maybe in a team where they're still pretty active to working and not really been far from the, not been a long way from the deck or maybe coming across from a different department or a different place or from private enterprise and ending up in a role where they're not very familiar with what's going on.
What would your advice be to that new leader landing in their first six months of being in the seat, in a new leadership role, beyond their experience level? What would your advice to be for them?
[00:15:40] Robert Stevens: My advice would be in addition to being a good listener, But I would say transparency is important. Gaining the confidence of those who you are leading is extremely important. And it's okay to say that I don't know, but I'll get back to you. I'll take that as a look up. It's okay to say that.
I think people are looking for in their leaders, they're looking for the authentic leader. We do have some strong leaders who are capable of doing a fantastic job. So I would advise my advice to them would be one, be authentic, be transparent, share your vision, communicate with folks, figure out who you can trust, those are some of the important things that I would say, and then do walkabouts.
[00:16:36] Tim Brewer: That's a very Australian term, Rob. I don't know if you're using that just for me, but for those of you who may not have heard that, you've got to go watch Crocodile Dundee.
[00:16:47] Robert Stevens: I love Crocodile Dundee.
[00:16:48] Tim Brewer: Yeah. Maybe we should explain for the listeners. What do you mean by a walkabout?
[00:16:52] Robert Stevens: When I say walkabout, it's important to get out and see what your people are doing. It's important to go into the spaces. It's important to observe, ask questions that so that you can understand what it is that your people are doing.
And so that you can learn the capabilities of your people and the capacity that they have. Am I asking them to do something that I know that they don't have the capacity to do? So do I need to bring in expertise to do this? Do I need to train them? How much time do I have to train them?
You're not going to know that if you are not engaged in actively interacting with your people. A walkabout. I used to say, I got MBWA, they say what's a MBWA? Management by Walking Around. You gotta get out and walk around. You gotta see what people are doing. So that's what I mean by walkabout
[00:17:52] Tim Brewer: I think that's really good advice, Rob. Thank you. I think we are just about there on time. Is there any questions you have for us or any final things you'd like to share with our audience?
[00:18:01] Robert Stevens: I will tell you that I'm delighted that you all are here. I was at the first ODF conference for me last year. And so I didn't see this. And so I'm delighted to see that this is here. The reason I'm delighted that you all are doing this is because I believe that more people need to learn about org design. They need to learn what it is. They need to learn how it can help their organization and org design Has a lot more components to it than just creating an organizational chart, lines and boxes. So I want people to be curious about how can org design help me? How can I use and how can I leverage the knowledge from this information? And if you have within your organizations, if you have org design specialists internally, I would say pull those guys out of your HR departments and align them to where as they can have the greatest impact on your organization across all lines. That's what I would, I would offer them.
[00:19:14] Amy Springer: Thank you, Robert, so much for joining us. Firstly, from Atlanta, here at the conference, and then sitting with us this afternoon and joining the podcast.
[00:19:23] Robert Stevens: It was my pleasure.
[00:19:24] Amy Springer: Thank you so much.
Functionly empowers organizations to enhance their structure and effectiveness by providing a comprehensive platform that facilitates organizational design and workforce optimization. By leveraging intuitive tools for role clarification, communication strategies, and performance management, Functionly helps leaders to identify and address the systemic challenges that affect organizational health.This not only supports the effective alignment of teams and resources but also fosters an environment where leaders can actively engage with their employees, listen to their needs, and implement meaningful changes. With Functionly, organizations can navigate the complexities of org design with confidence, ensuring that every component—from leadership engagement to operational workflow—is optimized for success.
