Look at most of organizational charts today and you’ll see the standard top-down pyramid flowing linearly from the big dog down to lower-level managers and minions. But the first modern-day organizational chart wasn’t made to remind lower-level employees who they really work for. No, one of the first company-wide organizational charts was actually a 19th century invention of necessity.

Back in the mid-1800s, the Erie Railroad was a thriving but disorganized company responsible for transporting goods throughout the Northeast. The railroad company had more than 500 miles of track, making it one of the largest of its time. This was good for business, but bad for organization.

Today we deal with inconceivably large amounts of data that is made comprehensible only by modern technology. Back in the 19th century, big data meant something entirely different, but managing it was as vital then as it is today.

The entire chart in all its complex glory. Image: McKinsey & Company

>This flowery chart was a way to efficiently deliver critical information to the right person.

As the Erie Railway grew, so did the amount of data it had to wrangle: which superintendents were responsible for which set of tracks; schedule changes; who the various conductors, laborers and brakemen worked under. As Caitlin Rosenthal writes over at McKinsey Quarterly, if any one data point was mismanaged it could bring dire results: “One delayed train, for example, could disrupt the progress of many others. And the stakes were high: with engines pulling cars in both directions along a single set of rails, schedule changes risked the deadly crashes that plagued 19th-century railroads.”

This flowery organizational chart was created by Daniel McCallum, the company’s general manager, to efficiently deliver critical information and delegate tasks to the right person. Instead of a top-down structure, the chart flows from its roots like a tree. The power was centralized with the president and board of directors as its anchor, but much of the day-to-day responsibility over the tracks was allocated to lower-level superintendents. The reasoning for this, Rosenthal writes: “They possessed the best operating data, were closer to the action, and thus were best placed to manage the line’s persistent inefficiencies.”

You can glean all sorts of managerial insights from the chart, many of which are the opposite of how big companies work today, but the real takeaway here is that even more than a century ago, design thinking was sometimes the best way to solve a tough problem. Of course, by today’s aesthetic standards, this chart might breed more confusion than it eliminates, but it certainly is pretty to look at.

[hat tip: Co.Design]