How healthy is your current organisational model? Five warning signs in org charts

There is something comforting about organisational charts.

They suggest order. Clarity. Logic. Everyone has a place, every function has a line, every manager has a team. Especially in SMEs and scale-ups, where growth often brings noise and ambiguity, the org chart can create the illusion that things are more under control than they really are.

But that is exactly the trap.

In practice, many CEOs are leading companies where the formal structure and the lived reality have drifted apart. The chart says one thing, the business does another. And as long as growth keeps happening or operations keep running, that mismatch is often tolerated for far too long.

The problem is that an unhealthy organisational model rarely announces itself with one dramatic event. It shows up gradually: in slower decisions, confused ownership, silo behaviour, and a CEO who ends up acting as the glue between functions that should already be connected.

In 100 Days to Make Your Mark as a CEO, I encourage CEOs to look at the organisational model not as an HR document, but as a strategic instrument. Because if the way you are organised no longer fits the way you want to compete, execute and grow, the rest becomes heavier than it needs to be.

The first warning sign: too much still lands on the CEO

One of the clearest signals is simple. Too many issues still find their way to the CEO.

Not just the big strategic ones, but also operational choices, cross-functional tension, customer exceptions, internal trade-offs. When that keeps happening, it usually means one of two things: either decision rights are unclear, or the structure has created too many dependencies between teams.

In both cases, the company starts to behave as if the CEO is the only safe place where complexity can be resolved. That may feel flattering for a while. It is not sustainable.

The second warning sign: titles sound stronger than the real authority behind them

Another pattern I see often is that the organisation uses language like “ownership”, “accountability” and “leadership”, but the behaviour underneath it tells a different story.

Managers carry impressive titles, yet wait for approval on every meaningful move. Teams are said to be autonomous, but everyone still checks upwards before deciding. In those companies, the chart suggests empowerment, while the culture quietly rewards caution and escalation.

That gap matters. It drains speed and creates a strange kind of learned helplessness.

The third warning sign: functions optimise locally, while the company loses globally

When the organisational model no longer fits the strategy, departments start becoming little kingdoms.

Sales wants one thing, operations another. Finance tightens where commercial teams want flexibility. Marketing pushes activity while delivery teams quietly worry about capacity. None of this is unusual in itself. The real issue is when the structure offers no healthy way to resolve these tensions.

Then each leader starts defending their own box on the org chart instead of co-leading the company. What you get is not one business moving forward, but several functions negotiating their way around each other.

The fourth warning sign: the real structure is informal

Every company has informal influence. That is normal. But when the actual work gets done mainly through backchannels, personal relationships and exceptions around the chart, it is worth paying attention.

You see it in phrases like:

• “Just check with her first, even though it’s not her area.”

• “Officially it goes through that team, but in practice we do it this way.”

• “Nothing really moves until that one person has looked at it.”

When informal workarounds become the default, the structure is no longer supporting execution. It is being bypassed.

The fifth warning sign: the company has changed, but the model hasn’t

This is probably the most common one.

The company grew, internationalised, expanded its offer, became more digital, added layers, or moved into more complex customer relationships. But the structure still reflects an earlier phase: a founder-led setup, a country model that no longer fits, a product organisation serving a now-customer-led strategy, or a centralised model trying to handle a much more diverse business.

At that point, the org chart is not neutral. It starts actively slowing the strategy down.

Looking at your structure with fresh eyes

A 100-day reset is a very good moment to look at your organisational model without the emotional loyalty you may feel towards “how we have always done it”.

A useful way to start is not by redesigning boxes, but by asking a few blunt questions:

• Where do decisions get stuck?

• Where are teams most dependent on each other in unhealthy ways?

• Which roles are overloaded?

• Which leaders truly lead across the company, and which mainly represent their function?

• Where is the CEO still compensating for structural weakness?

Those questions often tell you more than the chart itself.

Structure is strategy in action

We sometimes talk about structure as if it were administrative. In reality, structure is one of the most concrete ways strategy becomes visible.

If your strategy says focus, but your structure rewards fragmentation, you will feel it. If your strategy requires speed, but your model centralises every decision, you will feel it. If your strategy depends on cross-functional execution, but your structure protects silos, you will definitely feel it.

That is why organisational design is not something to postpone until “after the strategy is clear”. Very often, it is one of the reasons strategy stays unclear or unimplemented.

If you feel your current company is being run through a chart that belongs to an older version of the business, that is worth taking seriously. In many cases, the next smart move is not adding more process, but redesigning the underlying model so the business can breathe again.