When org charts start looking like ancient summoning diagrams, it’s usually a sign: the problem isn’t structure — it’s what haunts it.
Another reorg promises clarity, efficiency, alignment. Teams get renamed. Processes get “aligned.”
And yet the same incentives stay exactly where they are.
So the patterns return — just wearing freshly colored boxes.
This little satire gets to the heart of modern organizational struggle: we keep rearranging the furniture, while the ghosts of culture quietly remain seated.
Meetings multiply. Decision paths twist into labyrinths. Approvals are carefully preserved.
Teams navigate a process landscape that feels less like strategy — and more like a ritual gone wrong.
This tongue-in-cheek visual builds on yesterday’s article:
The Haunted Organization: Why Reorgs Can’t Exorcise Cultural Patterns (When the Cultural Ghost Simply Won’t Leave)
The truth?
No structural diagram can banish what’s embedded in behavior — the incentives, approval logic, habits, fears, and the unspoken rules that shape how people really work.
A reorganized chart can’t exorcise a culture. At best, it gives the ghosts a new floor plan.
A light-hearted reminder:
Before redrawing boxes, question what you keep untouched. Otherwise it’s just another reorg in the chain — while the cultural spirit quietly carries on with its mischief.
