Org chart: Difference between revisions

Because we can see [[form]] easily, we imbue it with meaning. We assume the fixed connections we draw between vertices on the matter: that they are “structural”, because we ''say'' they are.  

Take the [[org chart]]: which places every person in a firm in a logical, hierarchical relationship to everyone else, can be neatly and easily controlled, and implies that these supply-lines, chains of command and communication channels are the ones that matter. But do they? aren’t

Witness the formalist disposition, when the most significant thing you can do is carry out a formal process. The ethos is this: ''look after the form and the substance will look after itself''. Take care of the pennies and the pounds look after themselves. But this is to look after the pounds and assume the pennies will take care of themselves.

And besides, this is to miss [[The map and the territory|the map for the territory]]. An organisation chart is a static map of the firm configured in the abstract, in theory, ''before it does anything''.  This is how the machine functions when it is idling. [[Org chart]]s are the plan you have ''before you get punched in the mouth''.  

Formal reporting lines are often the most sclerotic, rusty and ''resented'' interaction channels in the organisation. Communications up and down them — usually reluctant, strained, for the sake of it, to fulfil formal, not substantive, requirements for order — are at best ''reactive'' to commercial imperatives, and derivative of them: the firm’s real business is done only when its gears are engaged, and that means its personnel communicate with those who are ''not'' in their immediate hierarchy. The business unit is a cog: what matters is what happens when it is engaged.

But as the complicatedness of our organisations has grown we have developed more and more internal “engines” which engage not with the outside world, but with each other, generating their own heat, noise and movement — frictions and vibrations which wear out the parts and fatigue the machinery — and which are lost as entropic energy. Of course, one needs legal, compliance and internal audit, but when those departments have their own operational infrastructure and, are themselves monitored and audited, the drift from optimal efficiency is pretty plain. Internal audit departments now periodically audit themselves. But who audits ''that'' function? [[Elephants and turtles|Turtles]] ahoy: we approach an infinite regression.  

You can understand the wish to focus on reporting lines — [[formal]] organisational structure — because it can be easily ''seen''. It is is [[legible]]. It is measurable. [[Audit|Auditable]]. It is tempting, especially for people at the top of the structure, to attribute business success to the formal structure they preside over.

But it misses the organisation’s ''real'' arterial network: ''lateral'' interactions that ''cross'' the organisation’s internal and external boundaries: these are the communications that employees ''must'' make, whether or not they are recorded — communications between internal specialists in different departments and with the firm’s clients and external suppliers — to make commerce happen and move the organisation along. It is ''in'' these interactions that things happen: it is here that tensions manifest themselves, problems emerge and opportunities arise, and here that these things are resolved. These are not [[Drills and holes|the drill, but the hole in the wall]].

They are the informal hubs of a multiple hub-and-spoke network. They earn their authority not from their formal position, nor their formal grading, but their informal reputation, earned daily, interaction by interaction.