“There is a particular comfort in knowing exactly where you stand,” says Daniel J. Jacobs, Founder of Starkhorn and an interim and fractional CIO specialising in transformation and resilience. Clear boundaries promise fairness, predictability, and safety. In stable systems, that promise can hold. In complex, acquisition-led organisations, it often doesn’t. Over time, Jacobs came to a more sobering realisation: the structures designed to create certainty frequently obscure the realities that matter most.
One of Jacobs’ earliest projects involved leading a complex technology initiative inside a growing organisation. ‘Every gate review showed green,’ he recalls. But once the system went live, usage stalled. The business had shifted beneath the project. User behaviour had evolved, context had changed, and the solution no longer reflected how the organisation actually operated.
“We had succeeded at the wrong thing,” Jacobs says. The map was detailed, but it no longer reflected the territory.
Complexity Exposes the Limits of Control
As organizations scale, particularly through mergers and acquisitions, complexity compounds. Systems become interconnected, incentives misalign, and decisions made in one corner ripple unpredictably across the enterprise. In these environments, static role definitions struggle to keep pace. Role clarity answers the question of ownership. It struggles with the more important question of relevance. “The chart cannot protect us from what it cannot see,” Jacobs says. Regulatory shifts, cybersecurity threats, changing customer expectations, and integration dependencies sit between functions rather than neatly within them.
In M&A, the technology estate expands faster than the organisation’s ability to govern it. New systems arrive with every acquisition, integration stretches beyond original timelines, and visibility into risk erodes quietly. By the time issues surface, they are usually embedded deeply enough to threaten value rather than simply delay delivery. The responsibilities looked covered. What was missing was anyone positioned to see across the boundaries.
Fear Beneath the Frameworks
Jacobs attributes the attachment to rigid structure to fear. When outcomes disappoint, organizations often default to assigning blame, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly. In that environment, narrowly defined roles become a form of self‑defense, less about clarity and more about protection. “The first question is often ‘whose responsibility was this?’” Jacobs says. The question sounds procedural but is usually punitive. As a result, people optimize for staying in their lane rather than surfacing risks that span multiple domains. The irony is that these protective behaviors weaken organizations precisely when adaptability is required. Integration challenges, cyber exposures, and operational fragility rarely respect reporting lines. Addressing them demands shared ownership and the willingness to act beyond formal remit.
Accountability Without Blame
Jacobs isn’t arguing that companies abandon structure—coordination still matters—but that organizations must question the belief that clarity alone delivers safety or control. The real work of leadership sits in holding tensions that cannot be resolved. “Holding these tensions without collapsing them into false resolution is much of what leadership actually requires,” Jacobs says. One example is the tension between accountability and psychological safety: leaders need people to feel safe surfacing risks early, while still being clear that outcomes matter and decisions have consequences. Effective leaders create conditions where uncertainty can be navigated collectively. They reward transparency over blame and treat unexpected outcomes as information, responding intelligently when reality diverges from the plan.
Where This Meets Value
None of this is abstract. In diligence rooms and integration reviews, the question is whether leadership can see, interpret, and act on signals that cut across silos. The question becomes how to build cultures capable of navigating uncertainty without breaking trust or momentum. “When people can acknowledge what they don’t know without fear, organizations get stronger rather than weaker,” Jacobs says. That’s where durable value is actually created.
Follow Daniel J. Jacobs on LinkedIn
