Organisations rarely create value through reporting lines. Here is the first step to help you discover how to redesign work instead of redrawing the org chart.
The Hidden Organization
Nudge-Letter July 2026
You’ve seen this before
For some time, every move seems to hit the perfect chord. But as organizaiton grows, it gradually grows heavier with added layers, specialised functions and controls to keep everything in sync.
Then success demands playing to a different genre. Nimble competitors adapt to the new rhythm while the organisation struggles to keep time.
Someone concludes, “Our structure is the problem.”
A restructuring exercise begins. Boxes move. Titles change. Reporting lines are redrawn.
Six months later, competitors continue to gain market share. People still look for approvals for routine decisions. Functions still blame each other when work stalls.
The chart changed. The flow didn’t.
What’s really happening
Most organisations treat structure as a cause of their problems.
In reality, structure only defines reporting relationships. Every organisation has another, less visible structure—the network through which work, decisions, information and influence actually move.
Customers, products, projects and problems rarely stay within teams. They move across functions, geographies and expertise.
The more interconnected the work becomes, the less the org chart explains how things actually get done.
The real challenges usually appear when
- information doesn’t move
- decisions climb unnecessarily
- teams optimise locally
- dependencies fall between the teams
A flat structure doesn’t automatically create autonomy. A hierarchy doesn’t automatically create bureaucracy
What matters is whether the people closest to the work have enough context, trust and authority to keep it moving.
A Case In Point
The organisations that outperform over time are not defined by how flat they are. They ensure that functional boundaries do not become barriers to collaboration.
That is exactly what Alan Mulally recognised when he took charge of Ford Motor Company in 2006. Over time, regions, functions and product platforms had evolved into separate systems, each optimising its own priorities instead of the company’s overall performance.
Through the One Ford initiative, he focused on creating shared visibility, common operating reviews and a single operating rhythm across the organisation. Teams could see how their decisions affected others, making it easier to collaborate across functions rather than operate within silos.
The breakthrough came not from redrawing the organisation chart, but from reconnecting the organisation behind it.
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Recommended Read
The turn around story of Ford
Ford often shows up as a hard proponent of scientific management theory. But that was in 70s. Here is a story of how they achieved a turn around by effectively breaking functional silos created by very same thing that had worked for them. This is true sign of resilient organization.
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Try This
Draw the work flow. Map who works with whom, not who reports to whom
To start with, pick one important customer escalation, project or decision.
Map:
- Which teams touch it?
- Where does it slow down?
- Where does it get escalated?
- Who influences the outcome without formally owning it?
Then ask:
If there was no org chart, how would teams work to actually get things done and create value?
Identify a bottleneck that creates friction. Then ask what would remove it instead of who owns it.
No sweeping restructuring discussion. Just removing friction, one at a time.
What Shifts
Leaders stop treating org structure as the problem and start looking for friction in how work flows.
The organisation stops redesigning reporting lines and starts designing how people work together.
Teams focus on how work moves instead of where people sit.
Functional boundaries remain, but they no longer become barriers to collaboration.
Gradually, people begin to recognise the interplay between two organisations that exist within every organisation. The formal organisation captured in the org chart, and the informal social organisation—hiding in plain sight—through which work, information, decisions and influence actually flow.
Recognising both opens up new ways to improve how work actually gets done.
Curious about this nudge and want to know more about how you can implement this?
Write to us, and we will connect
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More from our “Nudge” series
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Coming up…
Last call for our “Semco Style Expert” program.
If you are a practising OD, Agile , business transformation consultant, and believe that work-culture is what differentiates great companies from the rest, join us.
Next cohort start on Aug 6.
Book your seat today.
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