Chapter 6c
The Limitations of an Organizational Chart


The schematic arrows in the chart are intended to represent the flow of authority, accountability, and communications. Arrows pointing in one direction are intended to represent the flow of authority. Accountability naturally flows in the opposite direction through these same channels. Arrows pointing both ways are intended to represent communications.

Anyone who has tried to capture the complexities of the functioning of an organization in a schematic chart knows that to be legible and useful, it must be greatly simplified. (Sub-charts could be employed to represent a more detailed schematic). That having been said, and their limitations having been recognized, organizational charts are useful for the visual ‘snapshot’ they provide of the basic organizational structure, and basic flow of authority, responsibility, and accountability.

We believe that an organization whose structural hierarchy, and whose basic flow of authority, responsibility, and accountability, cannot be reasonably represented in a visualized graphic chart will be prone to skillful and clever exploitation of its undefined dynamics by those who will seek to accumulate and entrench power in their hands.


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