Strategy decks are aspirational. Org charts are honest. Whichever function owns the most senior leaders and the most direct reports to the CEO is the function the company actually prioritizes — regardless of what the all-hands says.
Read the chart before the deck
When I start with a new client, I ask for the org chart before I ask for the strategy. The chart tells me what the company has been doing. The strategy tells me what they wish they were doing. The gap between them is the work.
Companies that say customer experience is central but bury the CXO three levels down are not customer-centric. They are finance-centric, sales-centric, or product-centric, and that may be right — but the leadership team should be honest about it.
The direct report tax
Every direct report to the CEO is a vote of confidence in that function. The number of direct reports a function has is more informative than the title of the leader who runs it.
Two engineering directs and one marketing direct tells you who the CEO trusts. Six marketing directs and one engineering direct tells you something different.
Redrawing the chart is a strategic act
Most CEOs delegate org design to HR. That is a mistake. The org chart is the most direct lever a CEO has on what gets prioritized. Moving a function up one level is worth more than any town hall speech.
The reorganizations that work are the ones the CEO designs personally, with the leadership team's input but not their consensus.
What a healthy chart looks like
The CEO has between five and eight direct reports. Each one owns an outcome the board cares about. The titles describe what the person actually does, not what they negotiated.
Layers stay shallow. Spans of control stay wide. The chart fits on one page without zooming in.
The chart is the strategy. Treat it that way and the rest of leadership gets simpler.