Every organization has two structures: the chart on the wall and the system that actually decides things. In the real one, the office manager with no direct reports can stall any purchase, the owner's Tuesday golf partner shapes hiring, and the 'approval meeting' ratifies decisions made in a hallway last week. New hires need six months to learn this map — because nobody's ever drawn it.
This worksheet draws it: trace four to six real decisions step by step and compare their actual paths to the chart, inventory the hidden approvers and what stalls without their blessing, log the bypass and override points, then make the honest call per mismatch — sometimes reality is better and the chart should change; sometimes the chart is right and behavior should. The repair plan formalizes, redirects, retires, or documents accordingly.
Who should use this faulkner systems tool
- Owners and executives who suspect the chart is fiction
- New leaders inheriting an organization with unwritten rules
- Succession and sale planning that can't afford surprises
- Municipal and nonprofit leaders with long-tenured informal power centers
What it helps prevent
- Managers discovering they're figureheads at their worst possible moment
- Hidden approvers stalling decisions no one knows to route to them
- Reorgs that redraw boxes while the shadow system keeps governing
- Institutional knowledge hoarding masquerading as helpfulness
- Succession plans built on a chart nobody actually follows
What’s inside
- Part 1 — The Official Story
- Part 2 — Decision Tracing
- Part 3 — Hidden Approver Inventory
- Part 4 — Override and Bypass Points
- Part 5 — Mismatch Assessment
- Part 6 — Repair Actions
If the same people problem keeps repeating, the issue is probably upstream. Faulkner HR Solutions helps employers find the system failure before they blame the wrong thing.
Faulkner HR Solutions helps Texas employers, nonprofits, municipalities, and growing businesses fix the people systems behind recurring workplace problems. If this resource raised a risk flag, do not guess your way through the next step.