A Welcome Upside-Down

Last week I was looking at a companies website and saw their organisational chart was flipped on its head - literally. The head of the organisation was at the bottom of the chart and the clients and frontline workers were at the top.

I haven't seen this for quite a while but it's such elegant symbolism for the companies intent.

Now maybe you think this doesn't mean anything. In reality, they could work as hierarchically as the next place. [I don't know]. But I love the intention behind this metaphorical inversion of power.

And metaphors matter.

Top and bottom mean significantly more than a relational position - they invoke notions of greater/better opposed to lesser/worse.

The top and bottom student is a ranking. Australia is 'down under', the Antipodes. Saying 'the world is turned upside-down' is clearly absurd - because we are a spinning sphere in space. There is no reason for any place to be the top or the bottom of the world. Just as we can't literally go to the ends of the earth.

ONE THING I know is that these symbols of organisational intent are important. While they are not enough in themselves, they signify what matters and open up the possibility to reimagine our workplaces.