Real organisation
The way the company actually works: who really decides, who talks to whom, where decisions get stuck, which managers carry the company and which slow it down. It always differs from the displayed organisation chart.
What it changes for the executive
The executive sees his organisation from the top, where it most resembles the diagram. Any reorganisation that starts from the chart rather than from the real organisation redraws a structure that did not exist in the first place. Establishing it takes interviews and observation, and almost always produces surprises.
Example
Next to each box of the chart, write who actually decides in that area: where the two names differ, the real organisation and the displayed one have parted ways.
A term that is missing?
Describe the situation in a few lines; the reply is personal.