When the org chart lies about how work moves
Formal reporting lines rarely match the informal routes people use to get decisions made — and redesign fails when you only rearrange boxes.
Ask three people “who approves a pricing exception?” and you may hear three answers that do not appear on the chart. That gap is not a curiosity; it is where customer delays and manager frustration concentrate.
In diagnostic work we map both the formal structure and the lived path of a few critical decisions — hiring a specialist, escalating a client complaint, releasing budget for overtime. The second map almost always shows shortcuts through trusted individuals who have no official mandate.
If you redraw boxes without naming those informal loads, you simply move burnout to a new title. Better to decide which shortcuts should become official, which should be discouraged, and which need a clearer escalation path.
A practical test before any restructure announcement: pick five recurring decisions and walk them with frontline managers. Where they hesitate, your chart is already lying.