Comments regarding org charts have been to the effect that they are
abstracts, possibly afterthoughts, and that they do not reflect how firms
really operate. Are they intended to reflect how firms operate? I agree
they do not, but I wonder if that is their intent.
Most firms are organized around certain functions or specialties, and that
is usually what the org chart represents. A process chart does not
represent the specialist functions, but it accurately recognizes how an
organization operates. These two documents have two different purposes. I
thought they each succeeded at their purpose.
Actually, job descriptions are incorrect. They assign responsibilities to
functional specialists, but those functional specialists have no chance of
achieving their goals without much collaboration from other departments.
Job descriptions tend to hold people accountable for performance that is
beyond their scope.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>