UdyamGita

When key positions in the organizational structure are left vacant, it can create chaos within the organization. Teams may become confused about their roles and responsibilities, and the coordination between teams can get disturbed. Due to this confusion, teams may not clearly understand their RACI roles, responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed, and may end up overdoing tasks, underdoing them, or overlapping responsibilities.

As a result, inefficiencies can increase in the system, and deliverables may get impacted. This can lead to customer dissatisfaction and, in some cases, losing customers to competitors permanently. Therefore, organizations should be very careful when removing key roles from the hierarchy. When such a situation is inevitable and the founder does not focus on restoring rhythm at the earliest through suitable interventions, the organization may take an indefinite amount of time to return to its original rhythm.

That is why every organization should have clear guidelines, rules, roles, and responsibilities defined. During times of crisis, these act as guiding lamps for the organization.

Continuing his line of thought, Arjuna warns Janardana about the long-term consequences of destroying established structures. When family traditions collapse, welfare systems break down, and generations suffer. Such destruction, Arjuna believes, traps societies in prolonged suffering with no clear recovery path.

This is Arjuna’s deepest fear now—not immediate loss, but irreversible systemic damage.

Business Insight

Arjuna’s concern maps directly to organizational structure collapse.

When key positions in an organization are suddenly vacated—especially leadership or coordination roles—it creates chaos:

• Teams lose clarity on who does what
• Accountability weakens
• Decision-making slows or overlaps
• Execution quality deteriorates

Without clear ownership, teams struggle to understand their RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed). This leads to:

• overdoing certain tasks
• underdoing critical responsibilities
• duplicated efforts
• missed deadlines

Eventually, inefficiency spills outward—clients get dissatisfied, trust erodes, and competitors permanently take advantage of the confusion.

Leadership Lesson

Arjuna highlights a critical leadership truth:systems take a long time to recover once rhythm is lost.

If founders remove key roles without immediately restoring structure, the organization may take an indefinite time to regain stability—sometimes never fully returning to its original rhythm.

This is why leadership transitions must be managed, not improvised. When removal is inevitable, leaders must act swiftly to:

• redefine roles
• reassign responsibilities
• restore reporting clarity
• re-anchor teams

Organizations that survive crises are not those without disruption—but those with predefined rules, roles, and processes that guide behavior during uncertainty.

Key Takeaways

• Vacant key roles create system-wide confusion: Structure loss impacts every team.
• Unclear RACI destroys efficiency: Overlaps and gaps harm execution quality.
• Clients feel internal chaos quickly: Confusion inside leads to churn outside.
• Recovery without structure is slow: Rhythm, once broken, is hard to restore.
• Defined roles are crisis anchors: Rules and responsibilities act as guiding lamps during turmoil.