Perception
The team is sorted - you have an org chart that shows who reports to whom, who owns what function, and how decisions flow. Reorgs happen every couple of years, but between the shuffles, the structure works, mostly.
Reality
Sure, there’s an org chart, but your marketing operations aren’t being run according to that chart. Informal networks and acquired knowledge (read: years of trial and error) are what makes things tick; who owes whom a favor, who has the best relationship with legal, which two people on different teams will actually make decisions together, and which VP everyone quietly routes around.
Disagree … find any real content decision from the last 90 days and trace the path it took. I’m willing to bet that the path isn’t what’s on your org chart.
The gap between the formal structure and the operating reality is where dysfunction lives. It's also where AI is making, or about to make, things worse, because AI-driven workflows are being designed against the documented org structure, not the real one.
Why It Matters
- You cannot govern what you cannot see. Informal structures do most of the work but get none of the design attention.
- AI amplifies the gap. Workflow automation built on top of on-paper-only org charts don’t automate anything real.
- Whatever operations there are walk out when the employee leaves. When key people leave, they take the informal network with them.
What Most Teams Get Wrong
- Treating the org chart as an accurate map of decision-making.
- Designing workflows against reporting structures instead of the work being done in context of actual working relationships.
- Assuming the next reorg will fix the gap. Spoiler … it won't.
What to Do Instead
- Map the shadow org. For your top 10 content decisions, trace the actual path. Who was consulted. Who overrode. Who really approved v. who should’ve approved. Then compare those details to the document org chart. The gap is your operating model.
- Design governance for the shadow org, not the formal one. Assign accountability where decisions really happen, not where the chart says they should.
- Document the informal. When key people leave, the operation degrades because their knowledge was tacit. Make it explicit before you lose them.
Try this with your team: Take the last major content decision you made. Write down every person who influenced the outcome … writers, contributors, editors, execs, agencies/consultants … everyone. Now circle the ones who should be in the formal approval workflow for that type of decision. That's the actual structure of your operations.
The Seventh Bear Take
Marketing organizations are built like corporate structures and run like informal networks. That's just how work happens. But the pretense that the org chart reflects reality is expensive. It leads to workflow designs that don't work, AI investments that don't return, and governance policies that don't govern.
The organizations getting real value from their operations are the ones that stopped pretending. They mapped the shadow org and how work really gets done, documented it, and designed against it to optimize and legitimize. Everyone else is automating fiction.
This is one of the strongest findings emerging from the research we're finishing this year. Interested in seeing the org design section before we publish? Get in touch.
Deeper Dive
Want more on this topic? Check out: Bear Essentials: If Nobody Owns the Content Lifecycle, Nobody Owns Your Brand.