Going direct

The org chart does not control the flow of communication. In fact, you're faster if you ignore it entirely.

After a series of posts on LLMs, we're returning to management fundamentals.

This month, we're building upon the cultural shift that management has experienced recently: smaller, leaner and tighter orgs. We'll build upon concepts from our previous articles: new advice for aspiring managers, should managers still code?, and being in the details.

This article, plus those listed above, reflect a new and expected management style for the current era: more hands-on, detail-oriented, and direct. This shift is driven by tighter economic conditions and the push for AI-driven efficiency.

Let's examine the concept of "going direct."

What is going direct?

Going direct means empowering everyone on your team to communicate openly and directly, without unnecessary intermediaries. This communication can be lateral (peer-to-peer) or diagonal (across different departments and levels), bypassing formal reporting chains.

Org charts are essential for defining roles, ownership, and facilitating performance management. However, people often mistakenly believe these charts also dictate communication paths, feeling obligated to follow the hierarchy. At best, this requires irritating message-passing. At worst, it dramatically slows down work and fosters bureaucracy.

An example best illustrates why this is an anti-pattern. Imagine person X in Team A needs to talk to person Y in Team B. These teams are in different departments, led by peer managers M and N, respectively.

When communication follows the org chart, X must tell their manager, who tells their manager M. M then talks to N (or perhaps even their shared manager) to pass the message down N's reporting line to Y.

Wow, that was a mouthful.

As you can see, this is incredibly inefficient. When you read it back, it’s borderline ridiculous. X should be able to talk to Y directly. Not only should there be no barriers to this, but it should also be actively encouraged.

The benefits of going direct

The consequences of not going direct extend far beyond annoying message-passing. It implicitly sets a cultural precedent that approval is required for every action. This creates a bureaucratic culture and undermines your team's sense of autonomy and efficacy.

Furthermore, forcing every decision up the chain can lead to counterproductive behaviors, like hiding or distorting information to secure a sign-off. Over time, staff spend more energy navigating internal politics than on what matters most: building great software (or hardware or toys or cars).

Going direct has a ton of benefits:

• Faster communication and decision-making. When the people closest to a problem can talk directly, they can make the right decisions quickly amongst themselves.

• Increased collaboration and knowledge sharing. It encourages direct collaboration across the organization, building connections, trust, empathy, and shared knowledge.

• Reduced bottlenecks. By removing intermediaries, fewer people are needed to make a decision, reducing bottlenecks from communication delays or availability issues.

• Increased trust. Allowing staff at all levels to talk to anyone they need signals a high degree of trust and autonomy. Conversely, requiring hierarchical approval implies superiors must ratify every decision.

• Increased initiative and accountability. When people are empowered to make decisions directly, they are more likely to take ownership of their work and be accountable for the outcomes.

Managers save time too. As we discussed in the opening of the article, the management landscape has changed. When teams go direct, managers reclaim time to be more hands-on and in the details, which is a win-win for everyone.

Putting guardrails in place

So far, so good. We want our staff to go direct whenever they need to. The reasons are clear.

However, if you're going to implement a culture of going direct (and you certainly should) you must put appropriate guardrails in place. These clarify how to go direct and when to revert to hierarchical communication.

When you announce this cultural shift to your team, it's crucial to establish these guardrails upfront. You should:

• Clarify decision-making authority. Define who has the authority to make certain decisions. The goal should be to maximize the number of decisions that don't require management approval. Spell these out with examples related to your organization, such as prioritizing tasks, defining feature specifications, or architecting code.

• Clarify when to seek approval. Conversely, define situations where approval is necessary. It also helps to provide examples. Frame these as "one-way door" decisions: choices that are difficult to reverse or that carry significant risk, such as potential downtime or exposure to security vulnerabilities. These types of decisions should be escalated up the management chain, or to the right group of domain experts.

• Establish a process for sharing decisions. As more decisions are made locally, you need a system for documenting and sharing them with the wider organization. This could be done through regular written broadcasts or dedicated decision logs.

With these guardrails in place, you must also lead by example. Practice going direct yourself to show the organization what it looks like and why it’s beneficial.

You can do this by having skip-level meetings, talking to your engineers directly about their work (because you are in the details), and encouraging people to come direct to you with anything on their mind at any time (see: Jensen Huang's "top 5 things" practice).

Additionally, always provide positive reinforcement when people go direct. This can be one-on-one praise or public recognition for a team that resolves blockers quickly or delivers at a fast pace. Call it out, give praise, and ensure that everyone knows that this is the right way to operate.

Some examples

With the reasoning and guardrails in place, let's look at some examples.

Imagine a direct report asks if someone from another team can help with a task. This is a great opportunity to encourage them to go direct. You could say:

"I'd recommend you ask them directly. If you don't make progress, or if it turns out the decision is a one-way door, then loop me in."

Similarly, if you detect an issue that could be solved by direct communication, reinforce the principle. For example, if you were asked:

"Can you help me unblock this ticket? We're waiting on a code review from the widget team."

You could respond with:

"Have you asked them directly to prioritize it? Let me know if you don't get a response."

As you shift the company culture, you'll find yourself repeating these responses. This is a good thing; you're reinforcing the right behavior. Over time, people will message you less and resolve more issues themselves.

Coaching everyone on how to go direct

Simply telling direct reports to "go direct" isn't enough. As a manager, your role is to equip your whole department with the tools to do it effectively so they build bridges, not friction. When people feel confident in their ability to communicate, they are far more likely to take the initiative and sort problems out themselves.

So coach them to make their requests easy to answer. A poorly phrased request creates more work for the recipient and is likely to be ignored. Encourage them to follow a simple structure: context, problem, and a clear ask.

Compare these two ways, the latter using that approach:

• The ineffective way: "Hey, can you look at the widget API? It’s not working." This message is vague, lacks context, and forces the recipient to start a fact-finding mission.

• The effective way: "Hi Alex, hope you're having a good week. I'm on the new reporting dashboard, and I'm seeing a 502 error when I call the /widgets/summary endpoint. This is blocking me from finishing my ticket. Could you point me to the right person on your team who knows about this endpoint? Thanks!" This is perfect. It provides context, defines the problem, and has a specific, low-effort ask.

Next, establish the etiquette. Encourage a "public by default" mindset. If a question isn't sensitive, asking it in a shared channel like #team-widgets instead of a DM means others can learn from the answer, and it doesn't get lost if one person is unavailable. Remind your team that "direct" doesn't mean "instant." Everyone is busy, so they should send their message and move on to another task.

Finally, give staff a simple escalation path. I often tell my team to follow up once, politely, later in the day if they haven't heard anything (and assuming the person is not on vacation). If they’re still blocked after that, it’s no longer a communication issue; it’s down to priorities. That is the perfect time to offer your own assistance, perhaps by looping in their manager too.

Things to look out for

Be mindful of a few potential issues as you encourage direct communication.

First, some managers may feel uncomfortable. They might feel out of the loop, especially if they're used to bureaucratic environments where they are involved in every step of every decision.

The solution isn't to reinstate that communication chain. Instead, encourage those managers to be so in the details that they already know what's happening. If a manager is sufficiently in the details, no decision should catch them off guard. If it does, work with them on improving their awareness and involvement.

Second, watch for people currying favour. A common example is a team member who constantly goes to a specific senior manager because they know that leader is biased towards their opinions. In this scenario, the senior manager must ensure that no special treatment is given.

Coach leaders that their decisions must align with the company's mission and values, not individual favoritism. This prevents back channels that subvert company priorities (e.g., prioritizing work due to a favorable relationship), which you will need to course-correct immediately.

And remember, you'll need to follow exactly the same advice if particular individuals always come to you.

So, go direct

Going direct is an essential tool in an age of flatter hierarchies and hands-on, detail-oriented managers. Autonomous organizations always go direct, knowing when to escalate important or "one-way door" decisions.

By fostering the right culture, you create an environment where going direct is the norm. Your staff will feel empowered to communicate openly, enabling you to move faster than your competitors. As a leader, your job is to set the guardrails and cultural tone that empower everyone while ensuring they know when to escalate.

When done right, you'll not only move faster but also free up significant time to focus on more impactful, strategic work, or even get your hands dirty in the code. You don't have to be just a message queue.

So, go direct. The org chart does not control the flow of communication. In fact, you're faster if you ignore it entirely.