The Best Orchestrator May Eventually Become Unnecessary

Most organisations measure success by becoming more necessary. More programmes, more staff, more offices and more funding all look like evidence of progress.That creates an interesting problem for organisations whose purpose is to strengthen a system rather than permanently substitute for it.

What would success look like if the system stopped needing you?

A development organisation may begin by filling a real gap. It coordinates local actors because nobody else can. It prepares projects because government lacks the capability. It manages data because systems are fragmented. The work is useful, and often necessary.Then something subtle can happen. The organisation gets good at being indispensable.

Battilana and Kimsey describe orchestration as a distinct role in social change: coordinating actors so that solutions can be adopted at scale rather than merely inventing or advocating for them. Their framing points toward a difficult tension. An orchestrator can support system change, but it can also become another institution that the system depends on.

This is not primarily a moral problem. It is an institutional incentive. If a team is funded to coordinate, success creates an argument for continued coordination. If it owns the relationships, data and institutional memory, removing it becomes increasingly difficult.The orchestrator can quietly become another dependency.

A better test is whether the intermediary leaves behind capabilities that others can use. A city should be able to prepare the next project without hiring the same external team. A coalition should retain its relationships when the original convenor leaves. Communities should gain greater influence over decisions rather than requiring a permanent translator. Government should eventually absorb functions that properly belong inside government.

This does not mean every orchestrator should disappear. Some coordination problems are permanent. Financial systems need regulators. Supply chains need standards. Regional institutions may need standing secretariats because interdependence itself never disappears.

The important distinction is between a permanent function and a permanent organisation.The function may remain while ownership changes.

This distinction matters particularly for international development organisations. Their historical model often rewarded delivery: run the programme, manage the grant, report the outputs. A systems role asks a different question.

What can the system do now that it could not do before?That may be a stronger measure of success than organisational growth.

The locally driven, network-supported systems-change literature makes a related point. Systems catalysts create conditions in which others can act rather than controlling the action themselves.

That requires restraint. An organisation has to know when to lead, when to convene, when to transfer capability and when to step away.That is harder than expansion because growth has obvious metrics and disappearance does not.

But perhaps the deepest form of institutional confidence is being willing to build something that no longer needs you.

Sources

Battilana & Kimsey, Should You Agitate, Innovate, or Orchestrate?
SSIR, Locally Driven, Network-Supported Systems Change.
Systems Orchestration, Coordinating Complex Change.