- 3 min read

Throw Out Your Organization Chart!

“Do we have someone in the building who knows how to speak Portugese? Or what about Korean?” asked the CEO of a young company. “This skill is essential for the deal we're working on between a Brazilian exporter and a South Korean retailer.”

The room was silent. “We don’t know who has those talents,” the project team leader finally admitted. “But my team managers can find a couple new people who can speak those languages from an agency.”

“No,” said the CEO, “I don't want to hire someone new when I'm sure we have someone here. We employ over 50 people from all sorts of countries!”

Map this conversation to what your company does and you will see the similarity of the problem. You don’t know what you’ve got. You only know their title and their ‘pay-grade’. You have no idea what more they might be able to contribute to your enterprise."

Throw Out Your Organization Chart

If you're like most companies, you keep an Organization Chart. It gives a picture of the team and it’s impressive looking. Many boxes with lines connect departments and other lines indicate which people make up each department.

But all that the lines serve to show is who reports to whom – a VP reports to the SVP, a manager reports to a VP, a staff reports to a manager. Each title indicates a person's level. It doesn't tell you what each person has to offer.

It's All About the Data!

Your Organization Chart will not tell you what each person in your company actually does, actually can do, or how much they contribute. It will not tell you if departments are working together as they should or if - as is common - they are working in silos, repeating activities and generating expenses that could be done once and shared.

Make a Talent Table

Ditch the Organization Chart! Instead, use Data to drive your thinking. Find the talent that is shining in your staff.

Knowledge is Power

Knowing the talent in your team and how they are being utilized will give you power. Looking beyond the boxes and lines of an Organization Chart will tell you if people are working in the right spots doing the right activities. Most of all, you will discover if you are most effectively applying the talent in your company to achieve more revenue, accelerate your market presence, and create growth year over year.

Take the information that HR has - and does not use - and put it front and center: the previous jobs and industries, the level of expertise in functions that are important, the college degrees, the hobbies, the language skills, and other team attributes that would be nice to know.

Put this into a good HCM system or a spreadsheet or a simple database and use it to re-organize based on complementary talents to get projects won and done!

Refer to this Talent Table frequently and you will find gems of inspiration in your team. You'll be pleasantly delighted with your people.

So, throw out your Organization Chart and mine your new Talent Table for the data that will help your people arc off each other to create winning teams. You will find yourself a world-class company that grows and glows!

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Rubenstein / Justman Management Consultants (RJMC) assists mid-market companies to evaluate, select, and implement ERP solutions. Extraordinary support from skilled and experienced consultants. To find out if your business is ready for a change, give us a call at 310-445-5300 - we know Talent. we know HCM. we know ERP.