It's not about the lines on the orgchart

I had a conversation with a CEO about organizational changes they wanted to make. He was giving more accountability to one of his team members; in essence relinquishing some of his day to day responsibilities - the leader he was promoting would have some of her current peers reporting to her. In addition, some other accountabilities on the team would change.

The CEO spoke a lot about clear lines of accountability and assuring there was no ambiguity that ensued from this change - music to my ears.

I asked him "Do you have any concerns about how your team will respond to these changes? How will her peers respond to now working for her? Are there gaps in their skills that you have been helping them with and how do you assure those are addressed?"

While the lines on the orgchart were clear, while a lot of thinking had been done on accountability mapping, we ended up spending more time addressing the intangibles. How will the norms of the team change? What conversations need to be had with the new leader, with the team members? What would be the challenges (style, skill, experience) of the promoted leader and how would the CEO anticipate, monitor and support them?

Because , at the end of the day, , our organization jumps off the pages of the orgchart and hits us with the human element...that is what it is all about!
We would all be well-served to remind ourselves of that once in a while.