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No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

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Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#121

Post by 1337biz »

parsnips wrote: post #60
surge wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the Scandinavian (specifically Swedish approach) that I experienced at a prior company. It has its shortcomings of course. But put simply, there is a clear hierarchy, but generally most decisions are made by establishing consensus or compromise between all involved parties, the "manager/boss" only steps in to resolve or veto/tie break if none can be reached. It's not structure-less, and there are certainly t…

Reading suggestion WRT to this approach: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/d...

Can you elaborate a bit?

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#122

Post by narnianal »

marcinzm wrote: post #53
papln wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common criticism of Valve's model, and it's fair to say that Valve's model isn't clearly obviously better, but those attack's on Valve don't make the case that the traditional hierarchical model, with its own well-known problems, is better.

>This is a common criticism of Valve's model, and it's fair to say that Valve's model isn't clearly obviously better, but those attack's on Valve don't make the case that the traditional hierarchical model, with its own well-known problems, is better. I would say that the key difference is that in the traditional model I can learn about my potential bosses during the interview process. In the valve model I don't even…

Also getting a shitty task might be a lot better than getting no task and then getting criticised for lack of ambition.

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#123

Post by SkyBelow »

js8 wrote: post #47
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #9

I would like to refer to the following - The Tyranny of Structurelessness, originally meant to address the concerns regarding 'flat' organizations. "This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a sm…

What about democracy? It is a clear rule (one person one vote) and yet it is not hierarchical.

There are definitely hierarchies that form in practice. Celebrities and politicians control vastly more power than the average that a single person should have (even after the politician leaves office). Those in law enforcement and those who are able to pay for expensive lawyers enjoy privileges that are denied to others. That democracy doesn't call out the hierarchy that develops does not mean the fore mentioned hierarchy does not exist.

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#124

Post by fuggles »

Have been thinking about this a lot lately. Not just decision making, but how to actually function in a healthy way in the day-to-day, in a flat org.

The place I work recently restructured from a more traditional hierarchical structure to SAFe - so the business has a well defined hierarchy, while engineering teams are completely flat. Almost 4 PI's on (~9 months) the promise of "self organizing teams" has not been realized.

We have a lot of communication problems, especially technical cross team communication. The development process wants to move much faster than the information actually flows, and if the information does actually flow what is communicated is wrong/incomplete. So what ends up happening often is that teams choose to operate in their own bubble.

Another issue is having common direction across all teams, while also allowing teams to operate autonomously. That common direction is missing so you end up with work from one team being very different from work by another team, and in a system that integrates a lot of different components it is awkward to navigate and work in.

The above, among other things, brings out "2nd order effects", like strained inter-team relations, to put it lightly (so there is an additional policing aspect to contend with there as well).

We have a System Architecture group (as defined by SAFe) but their time seems to be consumed by meetings and managing information flow and coordination across teams. There is also a "shadow hierarchy" (as others have mentioned thus far on this thread) that has emerged, and that helps a little, but it's really a poor solution.

Curious on anyone else's thoughts/experience here.

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#125

Post by davidw »

vjeux wrote: post #116
sametmax wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most flat org I've seen are not flat. The people naturally organised in tribes that are only known by themself, and that are in no organigram. Each tribe have an implicit leader that bears no title yet influences all decisions just by regular social interractions. Tribes communicate, negociate even, through the implicit leaders even if not directly. Some kind of overuling bdfl also oversees all tribes, like a king, i…

He refers himself as “the leader of Doist’s back-end team” so there is indeed some sort of structure.

Read the comments before the article, and I was kind of hoping that maybe the 'Doists' were a faction within the company. Maybe those that organized around a "bias for action" or something. They frequently go to war with the Architecture Astronauts.

Darn!

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#126

Post by adrianmonk »

dpeck wrote: post #2

Easy, you simply make the decisions within the confines of the shadow hierarchy that exists within all flat organizations.

A slightly radical theory: flat organizations are set up to foster that intentionally.

Suppose your company has the idea that they want to identify and reward natural leaders and/or those who test limits and push through boundaries.

One way to do it is to tell people your organization is flat, then watch for the people who don't buy that and instead see an opportunity to take charge.

You create a situation with a little bit of an artificial and completely intentional power vacuum, then you watch who takes it upon themselves to step in and fill it. By holding a bit of a vacuum, you encourage these people to show themselves. (And I'm convinced management is actively watching to see who takes that bait.)

I'd say these are the most common responses: (1) never reach awareness that it's happening and continue to take flat at face value, (2) see it as opportunity and take advantage of it, and (3) see it as unnecessary game-playing and dislike it.

Whether 2 or 3 is better is an interesting question. It might separate the practical people from the idealists, or maybe it separates the self-interested from the more community-minded. I can see some of both, personally.

EDIT: I don't necessarily want to be completely dismissive of the idea. There's something to be said for creating situations that allow for people to stretch and try out new roles. That's how people develop. This is informal and stealthy, but it is a way to do that.

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#128

Post by js8 »

jadbox wrote: post #110
kristianc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about democracy? It is a clear rule (one person one vote) and yet it is not hierarchical. Most, if not all societies do not implement direct democracy, where decisions are truly made by one person one vote. Most at least employ an abstraction such as representative democracy, and the United States employs an abstraction upon an abstraction with the electoral college.

Couldn't you have both? You have the right to a direct vote, but you also have the option to bestow your vote to a representative to cast for you. Seems like a neat idea and solves many of these structureless problems. Many people know that a topic is out of their reach or interest, but they may know someone knowledgable to give their vote to to cast for them. If they feel that person doesn't represent them, they can…

That's typically called semidirect democracy and is usually what the direct democracy proponents call for.

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#129

Post by hybrids »

pyrale wrote: post #120
hybrids wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Marxist revolutions 'of the peasants' pioneered this mass delusion of flattening." Ironically the Bolshevik revolution didn't really start out this way. The Bolsheviks advocated for a strict disciplined party model - if you've ever read what Lenin wrote of the Left-communists and Anarchists, it was clear that he was very much not mindlessly "against" structure. Of course, this would all eventually be liquidated by S…

On the topic of Lenin, one can read The state and revolution where he defends the need of a strong state in a communist regime, and this quote: "the people don't want freedom, they want power. Freedom ? What would they do with it ?!"

I had just reread "State and Revolution" a few months ago and do not remember this quote. Do you mind linking to me where you found it?

Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

#130

Post by narnianal »

ravenstine wrote: post #23
pault wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't hierarchy intrinsic to power?

You can have webs of power, but I've found that organizations that work this way have a lot of dysfunction. That's not to say that a hierarchy can't be dysfunctional, but I do think that well constructed hierarchies without tyrants are preferable to their "webbed" equivalent, since webs are almost always inefficient and serve to mask a lot of the power for the sake of a superficial form of equality or equity. I won't…

you assume that organizations with inofficial power webs only have official goals? The inofficial goals might strive very well while the official organisation struggles. For instance I assume even if McDonalds shops struggle financially McDonalds itself is still quite happily collecting rent from them.
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