The influence that sits outside the lines
An organisation can change its structure much faster than it can change who people listen to.
A new leadership team can be appointed, responsibilities redistributed or two businesses brought together under a new structure. Strategy and brand direction can change with them. But the relationships through which people seek advice, test ideas and build support have often been established over years. They do not automatically move when the lines on the org chart do.
Alongside the formal structure sits another one, built through trust, history, knowledge and relationships. It may never appear on paper, but it can have just as much influence over how the organisation works.
This is the invisible org chart.
Informal influence often develops for good reasons. People who have worked together over time know each other’s capabilities, understand the history behind decisions and know where expertise sits. In an organisation growing rapidly or bringing businesses together, those relationships can provide valuable continuity and help work move across formal boundaries.
Some people become important connectors because they know who needs to be involved, can bridge different teams or hold knowledge that has never quite made its way into a process or policy. Others have influence because of their history with the organisation and the trust they have built over time.
That influence does not always match seniority. Someone several layers down can be the person colleagues seek out before taking an idea further, while a new senior leader may still be building the relationships that give their decisions influence beyond their formal role.
People also learn an organisation through what they observe. They notice whose opinion is sought before a decision is made, which behaviours are rewarded, how ideas gain support and who others turn to when the answer is unclear. New employees are learning what the organisation says about how it works at the same time as they are learning, from the people around them, how it works in practice.
Together, this helps shape the culture people experience.
The difference between structure and influence becomes more important when an organisation changes. Roles and responsibilities can change relatively quickly, while influence built through years of working relationships tends to take longer to shift.
That continuity can be valuable. Established relationships can carry knowledge and trust through a period of change, while people who understand how the business arrived where it is can help others navigate what comes next. During a merger or acquisition, they can also help connect teams with different histories and ways of working while new relationships are still forming.
But it also means the organisation people are being asked to build can sit alongside an influence network formed in the organisation that came before it. Someone who was once central to decisions may continue to shape them after responsibility has moved elsewhere. New expertise may take time to carry the same weight as established voices, while teams with new reporting lines continue to seek advice and support through familiar relationships.
None of this necessarily represents resistance to change. Relationships that have worked well in the past are often the easiest ones to keep using. The more useful question is whether they still support where the organisation is going.
This matters to brand because a new strategy, positioning or customer promise does not move directly from a leadership decision into the market. People across the organisation interpret what it means and turn it into decisions and behaviour. How a problem is resolved, what gets done first and how consistently standards are applied are all shaped inside the organisation before customers experience them. The people others listen to can therefore influence which parts of a new direction gain traction, how they are understood and what eventually becomes normal.
The invisible org chart becomes easier to see when you look beyond who owns a decision to how influence moves around it. Who gets consulted before an important decision? Whose support helps an idea move forward? Who connects parts of the organisation that otherwise have little contact? Whose behaviour gets copied? Who do newer employees watch when they are trying to understand how things are really done?
The answers can reveal people who carry knowledge between groups, translate change for others and help new ways of working take hold. They can also show where the organisation’s stated direction and the behaviours being reinforced around it are starting to pull apart.
Much of the influence within the invisible org chart may be worth carrying forward. Seeing it gives an organisation a clearer view of who is shaping its culture, where earlier ways of working still hold influence and whether those patterns support what the business is becoming.