A TRANSILIENT LEADERSHIP IDEA

The work that matters most runs between the boxes on your org chart — and it usually has no real owner. The common fix, declaring that "everyone owns it," makes things worse. There is a disciplined alternative.

By Doug Girvin · Transilience Partners

Most organizations manage one map and quietly hope the rest of the work gets done. The map they manage is the org chart: who sits where, who reports to whom, which stable team you belong to. It is optimized for clarity and accountability for a role. But the work that actually produces value — the cross-cutting processes, the value streams, the handoffs — lives on a different map entirely, and that second map seldom respects the boundaries of the first.

Call them the two maps. Talent is allocated against the org chart, by hiring and structure. Need lives on the process map, defined by the work in front of you. They rarely line up. The result is latent capability sitting one box over from a process that is starving for it — and seams between teams that nobody clearly owns.

WHY "EVERYONE OWNS IT" BACKFIRES

The instinct to fix this by declaring a process shared — "business development is everyone's job" — is the right instinct. When done without rigour, it produces the exact opposite of what's intended, triggering the two role stressors that organizational psychologists have studied since the 1960s. Three failures show up together.

No definition → role ambiguity → anxiety. If the process is never defined, "you all own it" comes across as ambiguous. Decades of research tie role ambiguity to lower commitment and higher burnout. It is stress with no upside.

No skill → poor results. People asked to own work they are not equipped for cannot carry it, and the process limps.

No trust filter → role conflict → relationship damage. This is the one most leaders miss. A trusted expert told to "sell" is handed two incompatible identities — trusted advisor and salesperson. That clash is role conflict, and the dissonance is itself a stressor, on top of the risk to the very client relationship the role exists to protect.

The cost of ambiguity is badly underrated. In the challenge–hindrance research, demanding-but-meaningful stressors like workload can actually raise engagement; role ambiguity only ever lowers it — a pure hindrance with no payoff, often more corrosive than overload. And it is everywhere: in Gallup's 2025 data, only about 47% of employees strongly agree they know what's expected of them at work.

Two stressors, two moves. Defining the process removes the ambiguity. A trust filter removes the conflict. Most "everyone owns it" programs address neither — and add overload as a third.

WHAT AN ADJACENT ACCOUNTABILITY ACTUALLY IS

An adjacent accountability is a discrete, bounded slice of a process that runs outside your home team, which you own because your talent fits it and it is congruent with the trust your role depends on — named, evidenced, and recognized through the performance system.

It is a single, clearly-owned slice; talent and trust-matched; capacity-bounded; written down; and counted at review time. It is not a vague request to "help out," a second full job, or "everyone owns everything" — which is how distributed work usually rots.

THE THREE-FILTER MATCH

A slice should only be handed to someone outside its home team when it passes all three filters — and each filter prevents one of the three failures above.

Talent — are they genuinely good at this slice? (Prevents being ill-equipped for undefined work.)

Trust / role-integrity — does owning this slice strengthen, or compromise, the trust their role depends on? (Prevents a trusted expert being seen as "selling.")

Capacity — do they have room, or can it be made and protected? (Prevents overload on top of a full role.)

Talent alone is not enough. The trust filter is what makes this different from "everyone sells," and it is the filter almost every approach ignores.

WHICH SLICES TO DISTRIBUTE, WHICH TO RESERVE

Decomposing a process is not only about finding owners; it is about deciding which slices are safe to hand out. Some reinforce a trusted role; others corrode it. Slices that flow naturally from a trusted role — sharing market insight, nurturing existing relationships, spotting and flagging opportunities, contributing technical substance, keeping data clean — are congruent, and can be distributed. Slices that put a person in a selling posture — active pursuit, pricing, negotiation, closing — are trust-sensitive, and should stay with the dedicated owner. Keeping them there protects both the person and the relationship.

THE MECHANISM IS THE PERFORMANCE SYSTEM

Here is the part that makes it durable rather than another well-meant memo. You define and decompose the process (RACI is enough), mark each slice congruent or trust-sensitive, match the congruent slices to talent through the three filters, and give every slice a single owner — the discipline that stops "shared" from collapsing into "nobody's." Then you write the slice into that owner's goals as a capped "contribution beyond role" item, rated on contribution and behaviour — not on outcomes they don't control — and calibrated like everything else. Finally, the home manager sanctions the reach and guards capacity, so the adjacent work adds to the person rather than overloading them.

The performance metric is not the idea. It is the mechanism. It is the only lever that makes "not your job" durable and visible — the enforcement and recognition layer for talent-based, trust-safe, cross-boundary contribution. If it isn't named and recognized, cross-boundary work quietly disappears.

Most organizations will keep managing the one map they can see and hoping the rest gets done. The ones that pull ahead will name the second map, distribute the work on it with discipline, and make the invisible visible. That is Adjacent Accountabilities: talent-matched, trust-safe ownership of the processes that run between the boxes.

DO YOUR STRATEGY, STRUCTURE, SYSTEMS AND CULTURE PULL IN THE SAME DIRECTION?

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