Drawing How Companies Really Work

not the nice, neat managerial offices but the factory, design studio, or sales department-and take a good look. In one corner, a group of people are huddled in dehate over a vexing lo problem. In another, someone is negotiating with a customer halfway around the world on the Internet. Everywhere you look, people and products are moving, crisscrossing this way and that. You get a snapshot of the company in action. Ask for a picture of the place, however, and chances are you'll be handed the company's org chart, with its orderly little boxes stacked atop one another. The org chart would show you the names and titles of managers, hut little else ahout the company-not its products, processes, or customers-perhaps not even its line of business. Indeed, using an org chart to "view" a company is like using a list of municipal managers to find your way around a city. The fact is, organizational charts are the picture albums of our companies, but they tell us only that we are mesmerized with management. No wonder they have become so