During a reorganization, whoever drafts the new job descriptions sets the scope of each role, and a drafter with a view of how work should be divided can write that view in.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Five regions became three in the reorganization at a commercial construction firm, and the chief executive asked his chief of staff to draft the forty new job descriptions. She had watched the firm lose two hospital bids because operations and estimating each believed the other owned schedule commitments. Her drafts gave the head of estimating final authority over bid submission, schedules included, and gave operations a formal right to be consulted, with a documented response. She sent every description out with a redline against the old version and a one-page summary of scope changes, gave reviewers two weeks, and held a meeting for anyone who wanted to contest a clause. The operations director contested the schedule clause; the chief executive kept it and added a three-day consultation window.
Why it works
The rewritten description makes the drafter's preferred division of work easier and better at once: expanded authority stops looking like overreach and becomes someone doing the job as written. For roles that lose scope, the old reach is worth less, because those decisions now belong to someone else, and using it costs more, since every move across the new line needs negotiation. Reopening the document later is costly, because it means arguing that a signed description is wrong. The drafter's power grows with reorganization cover, control of the drafting, and reviewers short of time, which is why the clean form gives them time and a redline.
The thinking behind it
Herbert A. Simon Herbert Simon's Administrative Behavior (1947) holds that decisions are shaped by premises the organization supplies, and that whoever controls those premises influences the decisions made from them. A job description is such a premise, telling each person what they decide and what they only advise on. His Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World (1971) adds that attention is scarce, which is why reviewers sign descriptions they never compared, and why a redline matters.
Jeffrey Pfeffer In Power in Organizations (1981), Jeffrey Pfeffer traces power to position in the structure, including control of the decision process. During a reorganization, the person drafting role definitions holds an unusual share of that control, more than most formal titles would suggest. Pfeffer's view explains why the pen is worth having, and why everyone else should insist on seeing what it wrote.
When it fits
It fits whoever holds the pen during a reorganization (a chief of staff, an HR leader, a program office) when the old division of work is causing real failures. You need the sponsor's mandate to draft, a view of the work grounded in evidence, and the willingness to show every change. It goes badly if your view is mostly about allies and rivals.
How to use it well
Write the scope you believe the work needs, and show every change.
- Send each description with a redline against the prior version and a plain summary of what moved.
- Give reviewers enough time to read what they sign.
- Hold a forum where disputed clauses can be contested, and record the decisions.
- Ask human resources to sign off on each change in scope.
Explain the reasoning for the larger changes in a paragraph each, naming the failures they are meant to fix. People accept a lost decision more readily when they can see why it moved.
What it costs and where it backfires
Visible changes draw visible fights, and you become the person blamed for every lost clause. Some of your reasoning will be wrong, and redrafting later costs more than getting it right now. What separates the two is visibility. Burying scope changes in language few will read, or shipping descriptions under time pressure so no one compares them, conceals material changes from people entitled to see them, and a drafter caught doing it loses the pen for good.
When it is used on you
Request a side-by-side comparison before you sign when new job descriptions arrive during a reorganization with no redline and a short deadline, and compare the roles next to yours as well. Read for verbs and thresholds, ask human resources to document each scope change, and send disputed clauses to a neutral reviewer before the reorganization closes.