Someone is always in charge. They've just decided not to write down the org chart on paper, is all.
flat organization == informal hierarchies, yet to see a counterexample
No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
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Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#12I wonder what happens when the first trouble comes with an accusation of harassment, discrimination or some such thing. How will you defend the company, who will speak for it, and who takes the personal hit that eventually comes?
>How will you defend the company, who will speak for it
The communications department, perhaps.
>who takes the personal hit that eventually comes?
The person responsible, as it should be.
Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#13Yes, similar things have been tried before. See e.g. Ricardo Semler's Maverick! book (1993). Sounds interesting and seems to have worked well for them (judging from the book). https://signalvnoise.com/posts/945-excerpts-from-ricardo-sem...
It's an interesting book, I'd really like to know how accurate it is, what people on the ground thought.
Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#14I wonder what happens when the first trouble comes with an accusation of harassment, discrimination or some such thing. How will you defend the company, who will speak for it, and who takes the personal hit that eventually comes?
When did any CEO take personal hit for the company?
It usually is quite the opposite, company takes the hit for CEO.
And a funny quote, from 1911s The Devils' Dicitonary:
Corporation - noun: an ingenious device for attaining individual profit without individual responsibility.Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#15Is this just a workers cooperative, or is there a distinction I'm not seeing?
Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#16Someone is always in charge. They've just decided not to write down the org chart on paper, is all.
flat organization == informal hierarchies, yet to see a counterexample
ActUp used to give managerial lessons for leftist organizations. Of the materials I saw, one of the things they used to teach was that a truly flat organization results in informal hierarchies developing, by the people most capable and/or passionate (because they're motivated by the issue primarily). But then these people are most likely to burn out, because without formal recognition of the power they need to achieve that role or the formal hierarchy in place around them, they end up taking too much on themselves to cover the holes.
But they were talking to leftist organizations. Often these people had communist / socialist / anarchist ideologies, so you can't just tell them: "Implement a hierarchy". And even when they weren't leftist, they were often all volunteer organizations, so you had the same problem anyway.
So their solution, was that when you set up a new organization, you start with it flat. You identify who takes on what roles, and define those roles formally. As you define those roles formally, you define what people have to do to get into that position, clearly and openly.
And that's it. You're still flat, because the positions appear to be emergent. You have a hierarchy, but no one feels like they're stuck under the rule of a shit boss, because everyone in those positions are meritocratically elected, there's now a culture of free movement between positions and definition of positions, and what you have to do to move from one position to another is transparent, instead of opaque as a way for people above to keep their position of authority.
Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#17Crisp is quite transparent in how they work and it's documented here if you want to clone it yourself:
http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html
Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#18I don't believe this works well, especially in larger organisations. Groups of people naturally form a hierarchy, whether it's officially recognised or not. It's human nature.
Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#19It's worth keeping in mind that this is a company of 40 people. Half the size of most primitive hunter-gatherer tribes which had no formal organization whatsoever. At sizes that small, everyone knows each other, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and people can make decisions through consensus after a round of informal discussions.
The problems only start once the "tribe" grows beyond 150. That's when the number of people involved is too great for the human brain to process the entire social network. Hence why formal organisations and hierarchy are now needed.
It's great that startups and small companies are innovating with different organizational styles. Many of the structures found in big corporations are overkill for small organisations where everyone knows each other. Just don't expect any success stories from these startup experiments to scale up to bigger companies though.
Re: No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
flat organization == informal hierarchies, yet to see a counterexample
ActUp used to give managerial lessons for leftist organizations. Of the materials I saw, one of the things they used to teach was that a truly flat organization results in informal hierarchies developing, by the people most capable and/or passionate (because they're motivated by the issue primarily). But then these people are most likely to burn out, because without formal recognition of the power they need to achiev…
Do you have any links? I'd love to read more.
How did they suggest dealing with changes over time, as members join and leave or shift roles as the organisation changes?