Society · Coordination
OrgChartBias
Every organisational structure makes some tasks 'losers' with high laterality and weak communication; reorganising only moves the problem
Definition
Mechanism
An org chart sets who is naturally aligned (sharing a manager and goals), which actions have low Laterality, and where regular contact makes PeripheralHitchhiking likely. It also encodes a negative hypothesis: that people placed far apart will rarely need to work or talk together. In a complex organisation with many kinds of task, some important tasks always fall across those gaps and suffer. Creating a dedicated team for a current priority helps that priority but raises laterality for others, and promotion amplifies a person's weaknesses as well as strengths: moving the blanket to cover the shoulders exposes the feet. The chart is one shape, a form of ShapeControl. Rather than repeatedly replacing it, compensate for its bias with behaviours that let the organisation change shape cheaply within the same structure.
Invariants
- Any structure favours some tasks and disadvantages others
- A reorganisation that lowers laterality for one task raises it for others
- Communication and alignment are concentrated along the chart's existing lines
Risks
Failure modes
Reorganising around every new priority, at high cost and confusion
Blaming failures on 'lack of alignment' rather than on the structure's built-in bias
Reorganising for a priority that will not last
Relationships
Builds on
References
The number of functional units that must coordinate for an action to happen; the more units, the less likely it happens
Unplanned but necessary information travels on top of regular primary communication
Mind
Keeping an organisation, model or trajectory close to a desired form or target, with information serving that form
Nothing in this library builds on this pattern yet.
Reference