The Problem with Org Charts

In the modern era org charts are an antipattern you should avoid. Most such artefacts and documents were invented with good intentions. The org chart shows how our people are organised into teams, what their roles are and where they sit in the hierarchy. Everyone likes to see where they fit in. A nice comfy overview of where all the people are. But like all good intentions, sometimes there’s a dark side because all artefacts carry messages of one sort or another both good and bad. You have to take great care with how you handle those messages. So what messages from the dark side does an org chart carry? Let’s start with most obvious one: KNOW THY PLACE! “Here’s me up here at the top of the stack, reaching for the stars and oh, look, there you are down there at the bottom, shovelling shit like the pleb you are.” Org charts reinforce hierarchy. Knowing your place and being happy about it was a foundation of the Industrial Age. Without it we wouldn’t have made such fantastic progress. But in the modern era the industrial models of the past are undermining rather than driving progress so it pays to take a step back once in a while and think about the messages you’re sending implicitly with things like org charts. <a href="https://medium.com/@sean_luke/the-problem-with-org-charts-9e3f43989ffe">Learn More</a>