The Poetry of the Organization Chart

I was sitting with a woman in the Human Resources Department. There had been a reorganization of our department, part of a general reshuffling across the company, and I’d been assigned to sit with her to work out the new organization chart. 

You would think this was something of a useless exercise. Shouldn’t it be a simple matter of “here’s the boss, here are his or her direct reports, and here’s who reports to them.” But it was anything but simple, and I was to get a lesson in the Byzantine art form of corporate organization charts.

First, she pointed out, not all of the boss direct reports had the same title. Some were directors; some were managers. Next, there were directors and there were directors – a title wasn’t necessarily indicative of grade level, and grade level was everything. The chart had to indicate that by a subtle positioning of the boxes, with some slightly more elevated than the others. The same thing applied to the managers. Then there was the problem of some managers have more people reporting to them than directors did. 

To continue reading please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph by Alex Kotliarskyi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Poetry at Work, Chapter 8: The Poetry of the Organization Chart

I was sitting with a woman in the Human Resources Department. There had been a reorganization of our department, part of a general reshuffling across the company, and I’d been assigned to sit with her to work out the new organization chart. 

You would think this was something of a useless exercise. Shouldn’t it be a simple matter of “here’s the boss, here are his or her direct reports, and here’s who reports to them.” But it was anything but simple, and I was to get a lesson in the Byzantine art form of corporate organization charts.

First, she pointed out, not all of the boss direct reports had the same title. Some were directors; some were managers. Next, there were directors and there were directors – a title wasn’t necessarily indicative of grade level, and grade level was everything. The chart had to indicate that by a subtle positioning of the boxes, with some slightly more elevated than the others. The same thing applied to the managers. Then there was the problem of some managers have more people reporting to them than directors did. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Poetry at Work, Chapter 6: The Poetry of the Organization Chart

I was sitting with a woman in the Human Resources Department. There had been a reorganization of our department, part of a general reshuffling across the company, and I’d been assigned to sit with her to work out the new organization chart. 

You would think this was something of a useless exercise. Shouldn’t it be a simple matter of “here’s the boss, here are his or her direct reports, and here’s who reports to them.” But it was anything but simple, and I was to get a lesson in the Byzantine art form of corporate organization charts.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Poetry at Work: The Poetry of the Organization Chart

I’m likely to date myself here, but when I first worked for a large organization, one of the most important documents one could be given was the organization chart.

The chart made sense of the organization, in this case a large corporation. It demonstrated order, logic, rationality, and control. It provided a compass or map, allowing an employee to navigate the organizational terrain. And it also showed you where you belonged; your box on the chart, and how your group’s chart rolled up the larger chart, signified your place and how you were part of a much larger whole.

How the boxes were positioned on the chart was also important. The higher the box, the higher or more important you were in the organization. A chart, done properly, let everyone in the team group, division and organization know who fell where. Similar titles could be differentiated by slight differences on the chart (some of this was rather, bizarre, I know). The chart was the physical manifestation of the political pecking order.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.