Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

doist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 325 posts

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

#291

Post by Nullabillity »

mongol wrote: post #289
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…

What makes that a Swedish approach?

I don't think it's uniquely ours, but it is certainly ubiquitous here. So far I haven't encountered a workplace here that doesn't run that way.

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

#292

Post by doctorstupid »

ivanhoe wrote: post #209

There's one thing I've learned from white water rafting: On slow parts democracy works fine - everyone discussing about the best path - but when things start happening fast you need a single captain to make the calls, otherwise you end up hitting every single rock in the river while trying to agree if it's better to go left or right around it.

But democracies are capable of producing such leaders when required, as England did for the Second World War.

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

#293

Post by portroyal »

veddox wrote: post #195
achenatx wrote: post #79

The problem with explicit leadership positions is that people have no downward mobility. If you are bad, then the organization loses a great resource. I like the model of dept head in academia. Professors really want to be doing research, but they also need a dept head who handles administration. No one really wants to do it, so it rotates through the department. There are some perks like a pay bump, reduced teaching…

That's why democracies have terms of office, and that's exactly what we do in our student organisation. You're right: there has to be a way to get somebody out of a misfitting leadership role without completely humiliating him. Regular elections are a great way of doing so, and giving many different people the chance to lead benefits both them and the organisation.

Questions for you,

Does your student org suffer from student churn? As in, it's active from Sept-Apr, and 'dead' between May-Aug? Is the idea of student buy-in/engagement something your org has to contend with with?

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

#294

Post by mongol »

lucb1e wrote: post #189
fuggles wrote: post #124

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 re…

You're using some lingo I never saw before, what's a SAFe and a PI?

PI is program increment, a SAFe term

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

#295

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

JamesBarney wrote: post #266
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And large companies are not crippled by internal politics?

It's harder for large organizations to make decisions than smaller organizations. But a hierarchy helps not hinders that process.

Sure. But I’ve seen fiefdoms and cronyism pop up in parts of a hierarchy. The decisions that got made can only be described as attempts to bolster their CVs.

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

#296

Post by NotPaidToPost »

achenatx wrote: post #79

The problem with explicit leadership positions is that people have no downward mobility. If you are bad, then the organization loses a great resource. I like the model of dept head in academia. Professors really want to be doing research, but they also need a dept head who handles administration. No one really wants to do it, so it rotates through the department. There are some perks like a pay bump, reduced teaching…

> The problem with explicit leadership positions is that people have no downward mobility. If you are bad, then the organization loses a great resource.

There is downward mobility if you want it.

I have seen technical people promoted to managerial positions in the 'usual' way, i.e. seniority, who ended up not liking it and not who were not very good at it, and went back to purely technical positions within the same organisation.

Nothing prevents this as long as people are sensible, talk, and don't promote battles of egos in the organisation.

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

#297

Post by watwut »

pizzazzaro wrote: post #290
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…

Lets examine this against the top, root comment, and their comparison to white water rafting. We can debate our course while we cruise slowly on smooth water. But in choppy waters, we need a Captain to decide whether we go left or right around that big rock. I dont see this as such a bad thing for Flat Orgs. Nobody is in charge, but someone has to make the decisions. If we need to switch out who's in the role? Its a…

One problem is the lack of accountability. Someone is making decisions, but that someone is not taking responsibility of outcomes of those decisions.

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

#298

Post by Double_a_92 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #209

There's one thing I've learned from white water rafting: On slow parts democracy works fine - everyone discussing about the best path - but when things start happening fast you need a single captain to make the calls, otherwise you end up hitting every single rock in the river while trying to agree if it's better to go left or right around it.

For very slow parts a captain is probably also more helpful. I.e. if you were on the open ocean, you should probably listen to one person that has some kind of compass, instead of going in circles.

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

#299

Post by austhrow743 »

taneq wrote: post #254
aeternus wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One method I've found to work well, especially with engineers: Make it clear to the team that the new leader is stepping up temporarily to fill a significant business need. That the engineer is doing the team a favor by doing this and that the plan is for it to be temporary because that engineer is a great IC. It then becomes very easy for the new leader to go back to being an IC. They can even be thanked for steppin…

That last bit makes the rest look like a rather transparent attempt to mask a trial period.

That's exactly what it is. But people all knowing a thing individually and a thing being announced to the group are two different scenarios.

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

#300

Post by emilecantin »

achenatx wrote: post #79

The problem with explicit leadership positions is that people have no downward mobility. If you are bad, then the organization loses a great resource. I like the model of dept head in academia. Professors really want to be doing research, but they also need a dept head who handles administration. No one really wants to do it, so it rotates through the department. There are some perks like a pay bump, reduced teaching…

It's the last place you'd expect, but the (Canadian) military actually has this in a certain measure. Unit commanders are only appointed for a limited term (usually 3 years), after which they're expected to move on to another unit.

In the Canadian Cadets program, we dont have that expectation, so corps commanders usually stay in the same corps and either mentor the new commander or take on a specific role if there's a need.

There's one "old" captain at my corps who has been mentoring many generations of officiers; I wasn't even born during his first term as commander.

That does mean that there isn't much room to grow past that, though. Luckily, teenagers (and activities offered to teenagers) change a lot through the years, so that forces us to always be innovating.

Post reply on HN