As you read this (if you read this), remember that I said overrated, not irrelevant!  Clear roles and responsibilities are important on any team and in any organization.   That being said, I still believe organizational charts are overrated.Here’s why.Org charts help solidify chain of command, hierarchy, and structures.  Of course you need some of that for decision making and accountability, but org charts naturally set some other things in motion too.When org charts are too central to the leadership psyche and ethos of an organization, the chain of command, the hierarchy, and the structures generate clear lines of demarcation of what people are responsible for and what they are not responsible for.  But you’re probably thinking – but that’s a good thing, so what’s the problem?Because what happens when most people have clear roles and responsibilities?  That’s all we tend to (or have to) think about.By their very nature, org charts create silos.  Check out my brief review of Lencioni’s book on Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars here. The term speaks to the independent and isolated functioning of various roles and departments within an organization.  Things become so black and white and so specialized that partnering becomes non-existent, tunnel vision ensues without the big picture, and a general CYA (Cover your bAckside) culture develops as it relates to things that are “bigger” than what falls into the job description and where people are at on the org chart.  What I mean about CYA is that when something flames out or a problem or disaster takes place that isn’t in your neighborhood on the org chart or relate to your job description, you retreat into your own place in the organizational system for self-protection and avoid looking for how you might have contributed to the problem or what a solution might be.One helpful point of clarification here is that org charts can cause greater dissonance and fragmentation the more key leaders make them central to leadership discussions and planning.  The more hierarchy, chain of command, and getting people into the right “spots” is emphasized, the greater silo dynamics I think you can expect to see.  In this way, I offer a warning that org charts are a trap for type A folks, people who are extremely high structure, and those who lean towards very black and white ways of thinking.Lencioni does a great job illustrating some of these dynamics and one of his solutions is what he calls a “rallying cry” or thematic goal that unifies the key players and forces everyone to get their heads out of their own job descriptions and org chart box to attend to what is most important and of utmost priority from a leadership perspective for the whole.  I’ll add my own language to this and say that the thematic goal is designed to focus leadership energy and attention into “the contextual leadership moment.”By “the moment” I mean the unique opportunity in the near future (3 months?  6 months?  1 year?) to either provide compelling and timely leadership that will significantly advance your mission or run the risk of missing the moment and taking a giant step towards irrelevance.  Lencioni’s “rallying cry” is meant to funnel leadership energy into that moment in a way that galvanizes the whole leadership team to focus on the moment in addition to their individual responsibilities.  This focus generates a sense of corporate accountability and ownership and vision, guarding against the CYA stuff and tunnel vision.So while any consultant out there might mock my conclusions here regarding org charts, I find that a great many leaders gravitate towards safety in org charts and strategic plans while struggling mightily with identifying and leading key groups of leaders into “the moment.”  I don’t think that’s hyperbole.  I believe that – even if most don’t.  I believe so much of successful leadership is about “the moment” – not about the fleeting moment day-to-day, but about the situational context that makes your leadership decisions and action more meaningful.And don’t you think it would dramatically change your leadership culture if more leaders were starting to see and act in light of “the moment” rather than just according to their job descriptions or org chart box?What do you think about my statement that “org charts are overrated?”   Do you resonate with any of my thoughts here or do you have your own theory?  What other ways do you try to solve the tunnel vision/silo problem?I want to thank my team because they’ve helped me narrow some of my own thinking as we’ve been working through our own “thematic goal” for the coming 6-9 month season.  Shifting from our responsibilities to “the moment” has been challenging, but I sense the more we are doing that as a team the more momentum and energy there is for this season of work together.  But the consensus is that it’s initially very hard and different to go back and forth between specialized roles and then the larger whole of what we’re all a part of.  I’m excited for the day where it becomes second nature to us and those we influence!

Tagged as: change, Empowerment, leadership, organizations