[HN Gopher] Rethinking Hierarchy in the Workplace (2017)
___________________________________________________________________
Rethinking Hierarchy in the Workplace (2017)
Author : andsoitis
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-06-29 15:04 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gsb.stanford.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gsb.stanford.edu)
| woliveirajr wrote:
| "Flat" companies are made of the same meat-material of the
| hierachycal ones. There'll be someone who will take initiative to
| lead, some that will be in the flock, some that will be happy for
| a while and then succumb when crushed by the weight of having to
| decide.... and very soon _the hierachy_ is in place again.
| clairity wrote:
| this is where playing a team sport like basketball (where all
| the players are "equal" to start) can give you useful intuition
| about natural hierarchies. on a team (makeshift or otherwise)
| players naturally sort themselves out by roles and capabilities
| dynamically, without explicitly deciding or planning everything
| out before hand. you quickly figure out who can shoot, drive,
| pass, defend, etc. on offense, one person typically has the
| best ball-handling (dribbling and passing) skills, so that's
| the person who "leads", but often someone else is better at
| scoring, so that person "leads" the scoring effort. someone
| else anchors the defense and will literally command people to
| shift around on the fly.
|
| while hierarchical, it's fluid and dynamic, so more like the
| idealized "flat" hierarchy that's become such a fashionable
| term.
| bombcar wrote:
| The difficulty comes when there are decisions to be made, and
| it's not obvious things like "give the ball to the person who
| can score".
|
| At some point there will be 50/50 decisions, and someone has
| to make the call; that person we call the "leader".
| kqr wrote:
| No. If there's a 50/50 decision, none of the options are
| good and you need to work out a third. Or at least discuss
| and adjust the available options a bit more until you get a
| clear majority to support one of the options.
|
| The worst thing you can do in a 50/50 situation is to just
| make a call and steamroll the other side. You're very
| likely making a bad decision and enemies at the same time.
| gumby wrote:
| A company with no formal roles substitutes for it with
| politics. Just look at Valve.
| michaelfeathers wrote:
| It's important to realize as well that humans didn't invent
| hierarchy. It's a structure that occurs naturally when the
| costs of direct connection are too high in a system with many
| parts. This is why networks are federated and why vascular
| systems in biology are tree-like. The same dynamics are at play
| in human social systems, but they are not particular to them.
| camgunz wrote:
| There's a difference between responsibility and authority
| though. The top of the lungs doesn't tell it's subsequent
| blood vessels what to do, it's just that more blood goes
| through them so they have to be constructed a certain way.
| It's not like God made them "higher", they just have a
| different job.
| michaelfeathers wrote:
| > it's just that more blood goes through them so they have
| to be constructed a certain way
|
| I agree but the same could be said about decision-making.
| munificent wrote:
| I can't not mention Christopher Alexander's "The City is not
| a Tree":
|
| http://en.bp.ntu.edu.tw/wp-
| content/uploads/2011/12/06-Alexan...
|
| While you're correct that fully connected graphs are an
| extremely inefficient structure for communication or other
| resource flows, trees are also problematic and not as common
| in nature as you suggest. One clear problem with tree like
| structures is that they have zero redundancy. There is only
| one path between any two nodes. That implies that severing
| _any_ edge will separate the tree into two unreachable
| sections. Sever the wrong single edge and you can render
| large regions completely disconnected from each other.
|
| That's not a recipe for a resilient system, and we see the
| same problems in organizational hierarchies. In strictly top-
| down companies, you often hear "I can't do that right now
| because X is on vacation." There is no way to route around
| the absense (or poor performance) of a single member.
|
| And, in fact, vascular systems are _not_ entirely tree-like.
| Veins and arteries generally are, but where they meet at the
| capillaries, you see a more unstructured interconnected
| graph. Likewise, the leaves on a tree are not themselves
| tree-like. Their vasculature is graph-like and semi-
| redundant.
|
| I think a better way to look at it is as a continuum. On one
| end, you have trees which have the minimum number of edges to
| reach all nodes. This minimizes the total cost of building
| the edges, but also minimizes redundancy and resilience. On
| the other end, you have a fully-connected (or even multiply-
| connected) graph where there are many paths between each pair
| of nodes. That graph is maximally resilient, but expensive to
| maintain. The particular needs for minimizing edge cost
| versus handling edge failure will lead you to pick different
| points on that continuum.
|
| Also, when it comes to biological systems, the evolutionary
| need to _actually build the thing_ shouldn 't be understated.
| It is very likely that non-tree-like structures would be
| better but there isn't an easy evolutionary path to reach
| them. Phenotype essentially arises from "executing" the
| genotype, and trees are much simpler to procedurally generate
| than more complex graphs.
| michaelfeathers wrote:
| That's fair. I was just using trees as an example. Tree-
| like might be a better characterization. Point is: there's
| a reason why fully connected structures aren't very common,
| and why systems tend to form hubs.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| right, the loudest bully on the mailing list or slack channel
| becomes the "boss"
|
| now you have two hierarchies - the "legitimate" hierarchy of
| management, and the hierarchy of popular/virtuous "influencers"
| from the rank and file
| teddyh wrote:
| Yes; see _The Tyranny of Structurelessness_ :
| https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pessimizer wrote:
| This sounds suspiciously like the law of averages. The reason
| that people lead within a hierarchy is not because they have
| the "initiative to lead", it's because they've been assigned to
| lead. Even if they lose any "initiative to lead" or lack any
| competence in leading, they will continue to lead as long as
| the person who pays the bills says so. This could be because
| that leader has a great track record, because the check-signer
| or someone they trusted sensed a special spark in that leader,
| because the leader is someone's nephew, or because the check-
| signer and the leader like the same music.
|
| That's what hierarchy is - it's being _named_ the leader. To
| tightly couple that with "leadership qualities" is a sort of
| capitalist religion.
|
| If there's no hierarchy, maybe one person will lead on this,
| maybe another person will lead on that, maybe one person will
| be the nominal leader all the time, but actually materially
| limit their leadership to orchestrating the activities of a
| bunch of other leaders. It's not _organization_ that 's bad,
| it's arbitrary entitlement that's bad.
|
| The sentiment you express here is "there will always be a
| King." No, there won't always be a king.
| marcinzm wrote:
| A hierarchy among other things provides clarity on who is the
| leader of what, what their powers are and what they will be
| held accountable for. Most bad management is people finding
| ways to bypass those checks and balances. Scapegoating
| others, playing dirty politics to exert more power than they
| can on paper, etc. Removing even a semblance of structure and
| accountability just makes those things even worse.
|
| Documenting the power structure and the social rules people
| must follow actually makes life easier for workers and not
| harder. You can even push back or negotiate those rules which
| is much harder if they are simply implied.
| PKop wrote:
| What you describe is still the emergence of hierarchy.
| There's no rule that it can't be a voluntary arrangement of
| followers electing a leader, willingly following. When said
| leader doesn't deliver they remove their support, and elevate
| another... i.e. name him. Leadership qualities absolutely
| will come in to play in that scenario.
|
| Yes, bureaucratic structures can calcify a dysfunctional
| hierarchy; on the other hand the boss writing the checks
| exemplifies a hierarchy. The challenge is to construct a
| system that best maps to the natural variance in leadership
| abilities and successfully elevate best qualified leaders to
| positions of authority. The degree of mismatch is the degree
| of failure of the organization or system.
|
| >The reason that people lead within a hierarchy is not
| because they have the "initiative to lead"
|
| Sometimes this is the case though. How can you make a blanket
| statement it isn't true, given the assignment to lead &
| choice of bill-payer is certainly to a large degree informed
| by assessment of leadership ability?
| _e wrote:
| You make some great points. The arbitrary entitlement is an
| important and vital step in the growth of an organization.
| Not every basketball fan should play or work for a NBA team.
| There has to be some sort of gatekeeping otherwise a bad hire
| or misplaced promotion could become a cancer that kills from
| within.
| hushpuppy wrote:
| > says Lindred Greer, a professor of organizational behavior at
| Stanford Graduate School of Business.
|
| I wonder how many successful businesses this guy founded, created
| a culture of success, and handed it off to other people to see
| the company continue to grow.
|
| I am guessing the number is pretty darn close to "0".
|
| Because that is the only sort of "wisdom" I care about in this
| context; Success in making businesses.
|
| Every business is different. Size matters. Bureaucracies don't
| scale.
|
| Thinking that some self-reported information from a Dutch
| insurance firm is going to provide guidance to a auto
| manufacturer, Waffle House, or flooring manufacturer is like
| believing that all you need to do to make a sqlite database scale
| is by increasing the cpu count for your server linearly with
| database sizes.
|
| Works fast with 1 core and 100MB database? Then it'll work
| exactly the same with a 32 core server and 3200MB database.
| munificent wrote:
| _> I wonder how many successful businesses this guy founded,
| created a culture of success, and handed it off to other people
| to see the company continue to grow._
|
| I'm pretty sure zero percent of marine biologists are _actually
| sharks_ , but we still consider them qualified to study and
| understand sharks.
| mecsred wrote:
| If I met a marine biologist that managed to construct their
| own shark, I would probably trust their shark knowledge more
| than their peers.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I can tilt my head a certain way and see that... but would
| you trust their judgment more than that of their peers?
| Like, maybe a paleontologist inviting me to a park full of
| dinosaurs is the world's foremost expert on dinosaurs...
| but I'm not getting on that chopper.
| mattcwilson wrote:
| As a quite successful shark, I was initially pretty cynical
| and amused at the idea that "marine biology experts" with no
| shark experience had anything of merit to say.
|
| What brought me around was when I actually looked at some of
| their observations and realized that an outside perspective
| actually had unique and meaningful points for me to ponder
| that I don't think I could have arrived at on my own, stuck
| inside my shark-preferential perspective.
|
| (Now substitute shark : entrepreneur and marine biology :
| sociology)
| [deleted]
| kkfx wrote:
| No hierarchy means naturally-made ones since naturally some will
| led, some will follow however there is a missed point: a thing is
| a society at a whole, another is company.
|
| Neoliberals think that anything can be reduced to management,
| finance, that's not the case. As States can't be treated like
| companies so companies can't be treated like society/democracy.
|
| The society have a purpose: exists, living enjoying life keeping
| improving a generation after another. A company have a purpose:
| making money offering something in return. People in a society
| are part of it, workers in a company are just individuals here to
| earning their needed income. They are not "part of the family" as
| some hope to munge more work from them...
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| Contrary to what the article says, flat hierarchies and self-
| organization ("agile") have been en vogue for the last 20 years,
| and no one is saying "let's go back to strict hierarchies!".
|
| This suits organizations, who can save costly management levels
| and puts a lot of stress on the remaining managers. Those have
| gained a lot more people with all their needs and wants (and lost
| secretarial help along the way too). A manager visiting the
| office in the other town can easily spend a day with pastoral
| care.
|
| Organizations also appreciate that Business Analysts, Scrum
| Masters and the like wrestle through the complexity without
| putting too many tough (technical) decisions on the bosses'
| desks. Let them figure it out and let's just check the KPIs and
| budgets.
|
| The new generation coming into the workplace hasn't even
| experienced that much hierarchy yet. In my youth we still kind of
| lived as second class citizens under a general adult rule and
| have known a lot of formal leadership outside of our parents. Is
| the intern willing to do the kind-of-boring but necessary work
| along with me, because I carefully suggest it? Often, not really.
|
| So, get ready for less and less hierarchy. Learn to deal with
| invisible power structures. Hire people who already have the
| skills and will work self-driven. And consider that the team
| you're in may not actually share that "common fate".
| drewcoo wrote:
| Little 'a' agile was coopted by management consultants and
| became big 'A' Agile, which was agile-ish but revamped with
| management in mind.
|
| I don't think agile has been in vogue so much as Agile. And
| lots of people hate Agile.
|
| Common Agile traits (problems of hierarchy):
|
| - plagued by non-falsifiable victim-blaming claims that if it's
| not working, you're doing it wrong
|
| - standups as micromanagement
|
| - estimates of unknowns as accountable contracts of work
|
| - management "involvement" but no contribution
|
| - often a complete lack of long-term vision and planning
|
| - heightened demand for documentation as the blame games ensue
| dbingham wrote:
| Organization and hierarchy are not the same things. Hierarchy
| deals with power structures, while organization merely gives
| structure.
|
| "Flat" does not mean "structureless". It means that there is no
| power hierarchy. Leadership does not equate to wielding power.
| There is such a thing as a leader who helps organize equals with
| out wielding power. And there's research that suggests that the
| sort of leaders who approach their work as organizing equals
| achieve better outcomes than those who approach it as commanding
| subordinates - with or with out hierarchies.
|
| Many people - and you can see it in the comments here - associate
| flat structures with politics and with invisible power
| structures. And that does happen to flat structures. That also
| happens to hierarchies.
|
| Here's the thing - we are not taught how to function in
| egalitarian organizing contexts. The vast majority of the human
| organizations in our lives are layed out as some sort of
| authoritarian power hierarchy, so we get very little practice in
| flat structures. Most families are an authoritarian hierarchy -
| parents at the top, kids at the bottom, often with layers of
| hierarchy based on age. Schools are authoritarian hierarchies -
| administrators at the top, then teachers, and then the students.
| The vast majority of businesses are authoritarian hierarchies.
|
| So we never get to practice the skills or become familiar with
| the mindset necessary to operate in an egalitarian organization.
| Many of us have to unlearn a lot of bad habits picked up from
| authoritarian structures before we can really function well in an
| egalitarian structure.
|
| Which explains so many of the comments here. It's hard to imagine
| something you've never really experienced. And it's not
| surprising that folks would have experienced attempts that have
| gone wrong in one way or another (just as plenty of hierarchical
| organizations go wrong in one way or another).
|
| All of that said, there is a growing body of sociological
| evidence though that suggests well done egalitarian organizing
| structures (IE those done with an awareness of the potential
| pitfalls) are just as effective, or possibly more effective, then
| authoritarian hierarchies. And there is proof in the many worker
| cooperatives that have been successful. We would do well to not
| simply write that off.
| mikkergp wrote:
| I like the distinctions you made and I think it gets at
| something that I think separates the 'good' part of hierarchies
| with the 'bad'. You can't have a big organization without some
| people whose job it is to think at higher levels of
| abstraction, or to manage communication channels You need the
| structure of an organization with managers and executives just
| so everyone isn't always talking to everyone else. But I think
| of my manager as an equal with unique expertise in
| understanding how my work fits in with the rest of the
| organization. It's not that I can't know those things, but
| thats one of his dedicated responsibilities. Likewise I don't
| always have to think about what to communicate to which
| exec/director. So there's structure there, but we each have a
| similar vote on the team. The one are where I'd question a
| value of anti-hierarchy is expediency in breaking ties. I tie
| breaker seems to be expressing power, not just adding structure
| or playing a role.
| jonahx wrote:
| > Which explains so many of the comments here. It's hard to
| imagine something you've never really experienced.
|
| Or... they just disagree with the assumption that it's even
| possible for such "egalitarian structures" to exist at scale.
| In fact, their position might be based on a preponderance of
| experience.
|
| The "lack of experience" / "you just haven't seen a good one
| yet" framing strikes me as a rhetorical strategy to establish
| the thing you need to show.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Or... they just disagree with the assumption that it's even
| possible for such "egalitarian structures" to exist at scale.
|
| Of course it's possible. Market structures (including "smart
| markets", with elaborate and perhaps quasi-arbitrary rulesets
| driving desired outcomes) are quite egalitarian, and can
| easily scale up to thousands or perhaps millions of
| participants. The relevant question is when and why quasi-
| hierarchical organizations might become desirable _compared_
| to a market or agoric structure made up of arms-length,
| strictly codified interactions.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Market structures (including "smart markets", with
| elaborate and perhaps quasi-arbitrary rulesets driving
| desired outcomes) are quite egalitarian
|
| Even smart markets aren't egalitarian. See for example the
| response to the DAO hack.
|
| And real markets aren't egalitarian, see the bailouts.
| lliamander wrote:
| > And real markets aren't egalitarian, see the bailouts
|
| A market as heavily regulated, subsidized, and insured by
| the government as banking is hardly a central example of
| a "real market".
|
| That being said, I'm not even sure what people mean by
| "egalitarian" in this context, and so I don't know
| whether the term should be applied to markets or not.
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20220629155109/https://www.gsb.st...
| oofnik wrote:
| > Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such
| thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever
| nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose
| will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure
| may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly
| distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the
| group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities,
| personalities, or intentions of the people involved. The very
| fact that we are individuals, with different talents,
| predispositions, and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if
| we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we
| approximate structurelessness -- and that is not the nature of a
| human group.
|
| https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
| avgcorrection wrote:
| No one is advocating for structurelessnes. Or at least not any
| more. Not (even) anarchists.
| kqr wrote:
| Very important essay. Often misunderstood.
|
| It doesn't say "since invisible hierarchies arise anyway we
| should just as well start with explicit hierarchies."
|
| It does point out some common ways for invisible hierarchies to
| arise, and the challenge is coming up with structures that
| limit the effect of those.
|
| One example I like is that any person can be in any number of
| working groups they want, but they can only have a say in the
| working group they are meeting with at the moment. If two
| working groups are active at the same time, the overlapping
| members have to choose the one that's more important to them.
|
| This ties decision power to physical presence and we all have
| equal opportunity to be physically present. One person cannot
| accumulate lots of physical presence to influence a
| disproportionate amount of work at once.
| system16 wrote:
| > Navy SEALS exemplify this idea. Strict hierarchy dominates out
| in the field: When a leader says go left, they go left. But when
| the team returns for debrief, "they literally leave their stripes
| at the door," says Greer. The hierarchy disappears; nobody is a
| leader, nobody a follower. "They fluidly shift out of these
| hierarchical structures,"
|
| This sounds ideal, but I wonder what their secret is to pulling
| it off in practice.
|
| In my experience, when companies try to create a meeting to
| encourage "open discussion" where everyone has an equal voice,
| the hierarchies are still plainly obvious even if we pretend they
| are not. Egos, company politics, etc. are definitely not left at
| the door.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| > This sounds ideal, but I wonder what their secret is to
| pulling it off in practice.
|
| Their lives depend on it? When a group works in extreme
| environments (of any kind) cohesion, order and unity are likely
| something that could be the difference between success and
| failure. (my assumptions based on armchair logic and some life
| experience)
|
| Also, I have no problems asking people's opinion when I am
| leading, but I don't have to act on it. But I really appreciate
| "boots on the ground" opinions, because they always have a
| different perspective than those leading from a distance.
| oreally wrote:
| It helps that their tasks are generally time limited too.
| Well defined mission->debrief cycles allow for some good
| breaks from intense work. Can't say the same for corporate
| though.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| > This sounds ideal, but I wonder what their secret is to
| pulling it off in practice.
|
| insane levels of personal discipline...just look at the
| entrance qualification testing they do. these people aren't
| average
| abeppu wrote:
| I think people with authority struggle with applying a policy
| or norm which in general supports a more egalitarian working
| style vs deviating in the specific cases where they want a
| particular outcome. And if managers/execs/whomever diverges
| from those policies or norms even occasionally, it can break
| the trust which allows people around them to believe that
| stated polices are real.
|
| Consider:
|
| A manager wants to run open discussions in which all opinions
| are equally welcome, but in just one session cuts off an team
| member who seems to be voicing a real concern which might
| actually affect team morale meaningfully? Later, through glass
| conference room walls, that team member is seen on the
| receiving side of what seems to be a stern one-sided
| conversation. In all future discussions, who should trust that
| discussions are actually "open"? How long must that manager go
| without stifling an uncomfortable view before they're again
| credible in saying that all views are welcome?
|
| A director wants to empower teams by saying they "own"
| projects, can make decisions autonomously, etc. If that
| director sweeps in to override a team just once, when they feel
| a team is making the "wrong" choice on some matter, from that
| point forward how do those team members trust that they
| actually can make decisions on their own? Should we feel
| surprised if they start asking for permission for more things,
| and inviting the director to more fine-grained meetings?
|
| An engineering department has a stated policy about who must
| approve various kinds of changes, which is not oriented around
| hierarchy but about domain expertise. The CTO unexpectedly
| chimes in on an occasional PR unsolicited, with detailed
| question about the project of which the PR is one part. What
| has to be true for a junior IC to feel comfortable merging?
|
| I've never been in the military, but I would have to guess (a)
| it probably doesn't always work as well as described in the
| article and (b) when it does work, the parties involved must
| have both a high degree of trust backed by a consistent record
| of living up to their stated practices.
| dbingham wrote:
| Where there are hierarchies in place and there's an attempt to
| create a flat, open space, it's on those higher in the
| hierarchy to make that real for those lower in it. Everyone in
| the hierarchy has to be very aware of power, and the pitfalls
| of having it. And those who have more of it have to be very
| intentional about quieting their own voices and soliciting the
| voices of those who have less power.
|
| It's not an easy thing to do, but it is possible, and it's
| something someone can practice and get better at.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| They're elite units. Everyone in the group is incredibly driven
| and it takes a certain type of personality to get there. Esprit
| d' corps contributes to a higher level of cohesion. Also
| because the units are smaller, leaders have to contribute more
| rather than simply delegating. They have skin in the game and
| they need to trust their subordinates with their lives, which
| puts a limit on self-serving motives when decision making.
|
| Just my take, I don't have any proof/ citations, but I do have
| military experience.
| pphysch wrote:
| You maximize the capacity of a structure by carefully balancing
| its dimensions, not by privileging a dimension ("flatness").
|
| And yes, profit-oriented organizations do want to maximize their
| capacity. That means growing their market share.
| Aloha wrote:
| Hierarchy is useful for reporting structures outside teams, but
| strict hierarchy within teams quickly approaches a land of
| diminishing returns.
|
| No supervisor should have more than 8 people who need active
| supervision - you can have much larger teams than that, but it
| works out to a bunch of independently operating contributors and
| then "point people" who have responsibility for defined tasks.
| The number of point people is what is constrained by rule of 8.
| _e wrote:
| Where can I learn more about your "rule of 8"?
| wyldberry wrote:
| I first came across this in the Marine Corps, which pushes
| you to ideally no more than 4 direct reports, with the idea
| that you could have up to 8 directly reporting temporarily,
| but that would lead to your own personal performance
| degrading in anything that's not directly managing those 8.
| Hence the structure would be 4 to a "fire team" with a team
| leader, 3 teams to a squad with a squad leader, three squads
| to a platoon with a platoon leader.
|
| There's similar numbers found in the book An Elegant Puzzle:
| Systems of Engineering Management, and I want to say that
| similar numbers are espoused by Jocko Willink in his
| leadership books.
| laurex wrote:
| "Flat" is not the solution but there's definitely room to rethink
| hierarchy. It's possibly less about the 'structure' and more
| about the power dynamics that can go unquestioned.
|
| A hierarchy based on clear definition of roles where people
| playing these roles are matched in skills and level of commitment
| makes sense.
|
| Hierarchies become toxic when people who have more high-
| commitment roles start using power to dominate and entrench their
| power. Usually this results in a cascading effect where people
| with skills can't fully manifest them because they are needing to
| defend their position rather than contributing from a place of
| empowerment.
|
| A hierarchy can be power-with vs. power-over if it has ways to
| limit dominance and to encourage evidence-based decision-making
| and more autonomy within the system. In other words, structure to
| avoid making individual personalities or identities the driver of
| influence and power but instead develop role-based structures
| with clear. responsibilities and boundaries.
|
| Maybe it's more of a holarchy model at that point, where the goal
| is for each part of the organization to be important, and to
| fully contribute no matter what their role is, which doesn't mean
| everyone has the same level of commitment or decision-influence.
| asplake wrote:
| You finished in a better place than you started there. Roles
| are not the answer. As Bateson once said, a role is only a
| half-assed relationship.
|
| What quickly flattens the hierarchy is to allow the parts to
| which you refer to overlap, with meaningful participation not
| only inside them but in the intersections, people participating
| therefore in multiple parts - relationships between parts
| implemented via relationships between people. That's how you
| build networks not only of value delivery (trendy but missing
| the point) but of strategy and rapid insight/intelligence
| sharing. It doesn't take much of that to halve the network
| distance across the organisation.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| Uhh, disagree. We are a hierarchial specie and I prefer formal
| ones over informal. This is just leadership passing the buck
| because they're clueless and disconnected.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Humans are not innately hierarchial. We spent most of our
| history in relatively egalitarian societies. Only your
| ancestors from the past few thousand years are likely to have
| experienced anything as substantially hierarchial as a modern
| corporation.
| lliamander wrote:
| The reality of egalitarian systems (past and present) is much
| closer to the informal status hierarchies of high-school
| popularity contests than any sort of true equality.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| That's why I used (and qualified!) the term 'egalitarian',
| which has a precise meaning that encompasses that point. I
| should also point out that high schools are a bit different
| since they _do_ have some incredibly rigid formal
| hierarchies and they exist within an incredibly
| hierarchical society, so the students reproduce much of
| what they 've learned from outside. If you want a good
| summary of academic thought on how egalitarian societies
| worked, Ken Ames' chapter _The Archaeology of Rank_ has a
| decent lit review.
| lliamander wrote:
| Can you explain the meaning of egalitarian you are using
| in this context? Unless you said it somewhere else I
| don't think you provided me with a definition.
|
| I find that, at least in an American context, the idea
| that we live in an "incredibly hierarchical society" to
| be dubious at best. I am by no means saying that we have
| no formal hierarchies, but there is there is too much
| indivualism to describe that hierarchy as 'strict'.
|
| Thanks for the reference.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The chapter I referenced by Ken Ames includes a whole
| definition section, which in turn cites the classic
| definition by Morton Fried:
|
| 1) Everyone has access to the necessities of life and
|
| 2) Equal access to positions of prestige, which don't
| confer dominance over others
|
| That's typically contrasted with so-called "ranked
| societies", which are on the farther end of lacking one
| or both of these. Without getting too political or making
| value judgements, "American society" has both severely
| unequal access to the necessities of life (e.g. I can
| afford housing in the bay area as a tech worker, but
| others cannot) as well as positions of prestige and
| dominance over others that are not reciprocal (e.g. Uber
| CEO vs Uber SWEs vs Uber drivers).
| waynesonfire wrote:
| I'll point you towards an expert that says otherwise in the
| first thirty seconds,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s9Pkfva9oU
|
| Consider listening the to entire clip to understand how
| fundamental hierarchies are to us.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I was expecting you to link someone like Chris Boehm that
| might actually be considered an expert. Jordan Peterson
| isn't one. All you have to do is listen to that for it to
| be immediately clear how little he engages with the
| existing literature and data on this subject.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| engages enough to dismiss your claim, at least to my
| satisfaction.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Brain chemicals that indicate relative status to others,
| doesn't demand a heirarchy as a final answer. There's a
| multitude of ways of dealing with that, none of which are
| explored except for JP's catholic presuppositions.
| haskell_melody wrote:
| I worked for a well-known "flat" company, and it was awful.
|
| There is a point to hierarchy. There is great value to knowing
| who is more knowledgable and experienced, and who isn't expected
| to be. And it is nice to have a promotional process to aspire to
| and push you to become better at your job.
| k__ wrote:
| Yes, the problem isn't hierarchy but useless management.
| munificent wrote:
| Jo Freeman's famous "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" seems
| relevant:
|
| https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
|
| Overly rigid hierarchies can be bad, but _hidden_ hierarchies
| which arise without formal consent or guidance can often be
| worse.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Mismanagement can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. And we
| will inevitably blame the shape and size. Anything else would
| be rude and anti-social.
| vfinn wrote:
| Being "more knowledgable" isn't one dimensional, and manager
| doesn't know most about everything. Actually, probably everyone
| in the workplace knows the most about some subject-matter,
| niche or not.
| PKop wrote:
| >Effective teamwork _against threats_ requires not hierarchy, but
| egalitarianism; not centralized power, but a culture in which all
| voices count.
|
| >An organization that _doesn't face external threat_...should
| function perfectly well with a bureaucratic and hierarchical
| structure. In _a highly competitive market, though, egalitarian
| tendencies may support_ employee cooperation and, consequently,
| performance.
|
| Interesting, let's take a look at a meaningful example...
|
| >Navy SEALS _exemplify this idea. Strict hierarchy dominates out
| in the field: When a leader says go left, they go left_. But when
| the team returns for debrief, "they literally leave their stripes
| at the door," says Greer. _The hierarchy disappears; nobody is a
| leader, nobody a follower._
|
| Heh, ok then. So when everyone has skin in a real game of
| existential threats, hierarchy prevails and leaders lead with
| direct commands and followers follow. When they come home and the
| threat is gone, more relaxed egalitarian structures take over.
|
| It's weird to use the military as some prototypical example of
| flatness over hierarchy, when it is the epitome throughout
| history of hierarchical structure, rank, clear leadership etc.
|
| This whole discussion sounds to me like advice for leaders _in a
| hierarchy_ , with responsibility and authority, how to best use
| that authority to run their organization successfully which will
| inevitably include delegation, taking advice from lower levels,
| having open debate and critique etc. Not to flatten everything
| into egalitarian chaos and mass "Bystander effect" where no one
| is accountable and decisions don't get made when needed.
| dgb23 wrote:
| > Heh, ok then. So when everyone has skin in a real game of
| existential threats, hierarchy prevails and leaders lead with
| direct commands and followers follow. When they come home and
| the threat is gone, more relaxed egalitarian structures take
| over.
|
| I think it is more nuanced than that.
|
| On the field, the ones who call the shots make
| tactical/operational decisions. Often these types of decisions
| are drilled.
|
| When they get "home", they make strategical decisions. What to
| improve, what to work on, where to go from here etc. Those are
| more complex and social and they have a big mid to long term
| impact on further tactical decisions and so on. You want the
| brainpower and the buy in of the whole team here.
|
| I think this distinction is very important.
|
| Small, tactical decisions should be made efficiently and
| followed efficiently. You prefer that they are close to
| automatic, but in some cases you need to improvise. That's not
| hierarchy, it is clean, efficient, fast communication. It's
| only hierarchical if the people who execute are not on board up
| front.
|
| Strategical decisions are different, they are planned up front,
| so you need to consider a ton of possibilities, situations,
| tactics and you need to consider people's capabilities and
| needs.
|
| The most effective political organizations tend to lean towards
| this model of strategical decisions being made democratically.
| You make the rules together and decide the direction together.
| But when it comes to the day to day, people just execute what
| is previously discussed in a more automatic manner, with
| corrections and improvisation where needed.
| twawaaay wrote:
| The problem isn't hierarchy, it is how managers are thinking it
| gives them power over their subordinates (it does not), that they
| are better than their team because they have been promoted (they
| are not), and it is how subordinates are getting lazy pushing all
| important problems for the manager to decide because he is best
| person to make the decision (he is not).
|
| The solution isn't easy but it starts with managers understanding
| how to work _WITH_ their employees rather than how to direct
| them.
|
| I have noticed a lot of managers treating their team as manager's
| personal resource to offload work to. The manager is the one
| attending all important meetings, discussing solutions with
| others. The manager thinks he is smart because he is the only
| person that understands the big picture when in fact he is
| responsible for this situation by restricting the flow of
| information to their team and by degrading their motivation so
| they aren't even trying.
|
| People getting lazy does not mean they don't have potential --
| they just might not be motivated to do better. Actually, in my
| experience, most people want to do good work and are capable to
| do so as long as they have been hired into right position. But
| they might not be getting rewarded for what they think is good
| work (even with something as simple as a kind word). Or they
| might not know what good work is (because nobody put effort into
| explaining it). Or they might not be getting work that
| sufficiently challenges them. Or they might feel they are not
| being trusted by their team, boss or the rest of organisation
| (which happens very easily when everything needs to be approved
| by their boss).
|
| Much better model I have is that of gardener -- be vigilant about
| what your employees are doing, make sure they have everything
| they need to be productive, make sure you understand how they are
| staying motivated, take a close look and try to understand when
| something isn't working well but otherwise do not position
| yourself in the flow of work and let people grow and do their
| thing.
|
| You can't build the above without trust. Trust is the first thing
| you need to work on.
|
| You also probably need to hire people for their values rather
| than their knowledge. It is hard or impossible to build trust
| when people have different value systems.
| verifex wrote:
| I think you might have missed the point of the article. Trust
| doesn't matter in an unbalanced power dynamic. If your direct
| superior can punish you for disagreeing with you on anything,
| then it stands to reason that you will submit to their will
| regardless of the outcome (this is where bad decisions are made
| because alternative points of view are squashed before they
| even get a chance). This seems to be the reason why more
| egalitarian organization results in better outcomes, the better
| outcomes are possible when trust is given to people, not trust
| is forced upon people.
| twawaaay wrote:
| > Trust doesn't matter in an unbalanced power dynamic.
|
| I am sorry you have never had a chance to work in a place
| where it did.
|
| > If your direct superior can punish you for disagreeing with
| you on anything, then it stands to reason that you will
| submit to their will regardless of the outcome (this is where
| bad decisions are made because alternative points of view are
| squashed before they even get a chance).
|
| No it does not. Not if you have what is called a spine.
|
| Anyway, I wish you will find a boss with whom you can
| disagree productively. Best thing ever. Highly recommend.
| arisbe__ wrote:
| Words like "flat", "equity" and even "equality" are misleading
| and cause confusion perhaps because they are causal terms and not
| scientific terms and phrases like "equivalence class" and
| "fungible in some context". But on the other hand such vague
| idealizations function so that average people can organize around
| a/some common cause(s) (even if it is just a vague aesthetic
| sense).
|
| I have recently wondered if the word "system" necessarily
| presupposes that there will be hierarchy at least in some tiny
| amount somewhere. After all what would an actual Communist or
| entirely flat type "system" look like once formalized? All living
| systems, most technology and even meaning have asymmetric
| characteristics. Can anyone name an existing thing or system that
| the Communist utopia would be analogous too?
|
| I would speculate that extreme inequality and hierarchy have to
| do with difference between additive and multiplicative dynamics
| in feedback. That is, if we all lived in isolated primitive
| groups the difference in value creation between each tribe would
| be like flipping coins where each flip is entirely independent of
| the next. In such an environment we wouldn't have as much
| differentiation (specialization) and grouping (organizations).
| The increased reach of our social and logistical networks of
| interactions and trade have had a multiplicative effect on an
| individual's ability to generate value. In recent times these
| networks are becoming huge and very stratified. It is like
| globalization (speaking very generally) is leading towards the
| globe becoming a literal fractal and thus power law distributions
| are now showing up where they were not before.
|
| If the human superorganism is following a trend similar to Per
| Bak's sand pile model ("Self-organized criticality") then perhaps
| the end of history will be the opposite of flat.
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