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By Guest Author: Zvezdan Horvat,

Professional Director, The Adizes Institute Worldwide

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When we hear the words organizational structure, we usually imagine boxes connected by lines. And because the boxes are fixed on paper, we somehow conclude that the organization itself must also be fixed.

But does hierarchy necessarily mean rigidity? We at the Institute do not think so. To explain this, we use a methodology developed by Professor Adizes over a long period of time and published in many books.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 provides an interesting example. FIFA had to organize 104 matches across 16 Host Cities in three countries. It had a central operation in Miami, but it also needed strong local organizations at every stadium. FIFA itself described the model as a combination of decentralized teams in the cities and a central operations center in Miami.

How do you structure something like that? You cannot have thousands of people permanently sitting in 16 stadium organizations several years before the tournament starts. But you also cannot wait until the first match to decide who will be responsible for Ticketing, Infrastructure, Security, Transport, Competition, Hospitality, Media, Fan Operations, and all the other functions.

The solution is to separate the position from the person. This sounds simple, but it has important consequences.

You can draw the future organization before everyone is there.

You can have an empty box called: Ticketing Manager – Kansas City even when nobody occupies that position yet. The box is not a vacancy. It represents a responsibility we know will exist in the future.

As the tournament approaches, someone working centrally can move into that box. FIFA used this kind of deployment logic extensively: competition officials, for example, met in Miami just before being deployed to their respective stadiums, while many tournament roles were assigned based on operational requirements and location needs.

The person changes the hat. Yesterday I was working in headquarters. Tomorrow I am the Venue Ticketing Manager. After the tournament, that hat may disappear completely. The person does not have to disappear with it. This is where an organizational structure starts becoming flexible.

Solid and dotted lines

Another tool is the intelligent use of solid and dotted lines. A solid line should have a very clear meaning. It tells me who I report to. That person is accountable for selecting me, developing me, training me, and, if necessary, replacing me. That manager evaluates my contribution and determines my reward, naturally considering feedback from those I serve.

A dotted line means something different. It can show my professional home, my allocation to an internal client or location, or my connection to a center of excellence. This allows an organization to move resources without constantly destroying and rebuilding its hierarchy.

At a World Cup venue, the Venue Director does not need to become the professional boss of every specialist working in the stadium. Specialists work in Security, Ticketing, Transport, Media, Broadcasting, Infrastructure, Hospitality, and many other areas. They have their professional competence, methodologies, and standards. But during the tournament, they must also serve one specific location. 

So two legitimate organizational needs exist at the same time:

• Maintain professional excellence and deliver the result at the venue.

A badly designed hierarchy forces us to choose one or the other. A flexible structure allows us to have both.

Structure should show tomorrow, not only today.

We frequently see organizational charts that are nothing more than photographs of the current payroll. Who works here today? Draw a box. Who does not work here today? No box. But that is not organizational planning. If we know we'll need a responsibility six months or two years from now, why don't we show it?

An organizational structure should reflect development. Some boxes are occupied today. Some are temporarily covered by someone wearing two hats. Some are empty but planned. Some exist only for a project. And some have a defined expiration date. That is much closer to how organizations actually develop.

The FIFA World Cup makes this particularly visible because the organization expands dramatically before the tournament, distributes people across locations, operates intensively for a short period, and then contracts again.

But why should this logic apply only to the World Cup?

Imagine a company entering a new country. You can define the future Country Manager position before you need a full-time Country Manager. Someone from headquarters can temporarily wear that hat. Later, you can separate the position and staff it locally.

The same can happen when launching a new product, constructing a factory, integrating an acquisition, implementing an ERP system, or developing a new business.

Hierarchy is not the enemy.

People sometimes try to make organizations flexible by eliminating hierarchy. It confuses two different problems. Hierarchy answers an essential question:

• Who is accountable for what?

Without that clarity, flexibility quickly becomes ambiguity. The alternative to a rigid hierarchy is therefore not necessarily less structure. It can be a better-designed structure:

• One that distinguishes positions from people.
• One that allows people to wear temporary hats.
• One that distinguishes solid-line accountability from dotted-line service or professional relationships.
• One that can contain empty boxes representing the organization we are developing toward.
• And one that allows boxes to appear and disappear when their purpose appears and disappears.

FIFA had to combine centralized standards with decentralized execution across an enormous geographical footprint. Its Tournament Operations Center in Miami was specifically designed to maintain consistency across what FIFA itself called an “inherently decentralized operation.”

That is an interesting lesson for any organization. Flexibility does not mean that nobody knows who reports to whom—quite the opposite. When accountability is clear, we can afford to be flexible about where people work, which hat they wear, and whom they serve.

Maybe the organizational chart should not be seen as a building made of concrete. Perhaps it is better understood as a framework. The framework gives us stability. But inside it, people, responsibilities, and resources can move as circumstances change.

A good organizational structure should be stable enough to create accountability—and flexible enough to support change.