The SBA's Org Chart: A Horror Story in Boxes and Lines

I tried to understand the SBA's organizational structure. I have a PhD in systems analysis and 20 years of experience in organizational design. After three weeks of research, I can confirm: the SBA's org chart was designed by a drunk octopus playing with a Spirograph.

What I Found

The SBA has 17 different offices that all theoretically do the same thing but actually do nothing. They report to each other in a circular pattern that ensures no decision can ever be made and no one is ever responsible for anything.

Here's how a simple loan application travels through the system:

Step 1: Application received by Office of Initial Confusion

Step 2: Forwarded to Bureau of Preliminary Bewilderment

Step 3: Transferred to Division of Intermediate Befuddlement

Step 4: Escalated to Department of Advanced Mystification

Step 5: Returned to Step 1 because someone forgot to check a box

The Chain of Command

I counted 11 different people who have the title "Deputy Assistant to the Associate Administrator for the Office of the Deputy Administrator's Assistant." Each of them makes over $150,000 a year. None of them can approve a $10,000 loan.

When I asked who is ultimately responsible for loan decisions, I was transferred 14 times, placed on hold for 6 hours, and eventually told that "responsibility is a shared concept that exists in the spaces between organizational units."

I think I had a stroke.

The org chart includes a box labeled "Customer Service" that has no lines connecting it to anything else. This is either a mistake or the most honest thing the SBA has ever produced.