Changing an Organization

Organizational charts are usually drawn top-down in a hierarchy, and they tell you nothing about the nature of the company or its interactions. Let's redraw our organizational chart to see if we can better represent the interactions that might be occurring. Our customers are drawn as our roots, the foundations that allow the whole organization to survive. Next, we have the different business units drawn as petals that interact using business processes to achieve their goals. The company president is a rain cloud who is downward-looking, shielding the organization from the external board and stakeholders, who are represented by the outward-looking face of the company, the CEO.

Figure 5.3: Organizational charts rethought

Humans are biological organisms. Organizations should also be treated like organisms rather than the product of their organizational chart. It makes sense – organizations are the product of the people...