The Org Chart – Vital to Your Present and Future

Depending upon the size of your organization, developing an Org Chart may or may not seem necessary.  However, I would argue that they are always necessary because they are not just about better defining the present but they are about envisioning the future.  The only exception to this is if you are in a consultant type role but even then, if your business is successful it will still be needed!

An org chart should be based upon roles and responsibilities and not on a person.  People, as we know, come and go.  Their lives change and sadly, sometimes they pass away.  Not everyone has the same set of goals or desires as the owner of a business so it’s best to structure your business for change.  An Org Chart can do exactly this.  What’s more is that even if we are the only person in our business, we depend upon other companies and individuals for things.  Sometimes they’re services, resources or they’re relationships that our business strongly depends upon.

So an Org Chart doesn’t have to be limited to employees and an isolated business structure.  Think of it as a way to organize your thinking, how you do business, how you and your company gets things done each day.  When i work with people to create an Org Chart it’s been amazing to see that each time growth is envisioned and efficiency and clarity is improved.

By increasing your understanding, your vision, of how things need to operate smoothly, the business can adjust and refine itself so that it has a great chance for being successful.  Also, if you have employees or partners, then this is a time where you can learn from them!  So it’s not just about you coming up with a grand scheme for a successful business structure but it’s about pooling the intelligence of everyone to make your collective and individual workflows more efficient, enjoyable (whoa!) and it will naturally start to decrease the amount of emergencies, fires or stressful last minute changes that need to be made.

Many people can do this but you’ll want a system’s thinker to help you out.  This person is ideally from outside the organization who can truly claim ignorance, more easily see holes in workflows and better identify issues or potential issues in the division of roles and responsibilities.  Once completed, you can have two versions of your Org Chart.  One for the present and one for the future as your business expands.