MPS BRIEF · OCTOBER 2026
Structure is the easiest thing to see and the easiest thing to change. That doesn’t make it the right place to start.
By David Morris
3 MIN READ
I’ve made versions of this mistake in my own businesses.
When results weren’t where I wanted them, did I ask the hardest question first? Or did I start with the people and the structure because those were easier to see?
Who owns what?
Do we need different roles?
Would fewer layers help?
All reasonable questions.
But were they the real questions, or simply the ones I knew how to answer?
We saw this with a company we worked with. Growth had stalled. Was it a sales-performance problem? At first, it looked that way.
But when we followed an opportunity from the first touch through the handoff to the customer, different questions emerged.
Did marketing, sales and operations agree on what a good opportunity looked like?
Did the systems tell the same story?
Did anyone clearly own the handoffs?
The answer was no.
Would changing the org chart have solved that? Probably not. It would have moved the confusion around.
FICO is cutting 15% of its workforce, reducing layers and integrating AI.1
Are those the right moves? They may be. I don’t know. None of us outside FICO does.
But federal housing regulators are also allowing lenders working with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to use VantageScore, a competing credit score.2
SO WHAT PROBLEM IS FICO SOLVING?
Maybe it is all three.
If the advantage underneath the business is changing, is it enough to make the current organization faster and leaner? Or does the company need to become something different?
At MPS, this is why we insist on Clarity before Operating Model.
Not because we always have the answer. Because the right design begins with honest questions, and sometimes the most honest answer is, “We don’t know yet.”
So before the boxes move, what has actually changed? And what do we still need to understand?
If you’ve followed a problem back to where it actually sat, tell us what you found.
SOURCES
FICO, Form 8-K filed with the SEC on the restructuring, October 6, 2026.
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/814547/000119312526415732/d127042d8k.htmReuters, on the workforce reduction and competitive pressure in mortgage scoring, October 6, 2026.
reuters.com/business/world-at-work/fico-cuts-workforce-by-15-ai-driven-restructuring-2026-10-06AUTHOR
David Morris
See how the MPS Core Method sequences the work — Clarity first, then Operating Model.