Upside Down Service Pyramid

Inverted (or Upside Down) Service Pyramid 

In service management, it is common to hear talk of the upside-down or inverted service pyramid. The idea of the inverted service pyramid is that the traditional way of drawing organizational structure is inverted so that customers are at the top and the CEO and senior management are at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy. This is a very powerful way of illustrating the primary importance of service logic. This inversion symbolically represents the service ethic, or the service logic or the priorities service organisations should use and communicate to staff regarding their value system and culture. Supervisors, managers and even the CEO's primary role is to support front-line employees to deliver services to the customer. This is also a useful diagram to illustrate the principle of service leadership. 

Traditional organisational structure and inverted service pyramid