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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?

#31

Post by howard941 »

sidlls wrote: post #14
kd0amg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the hierarchical ordering of Congress, SCOTUS, and the White House?

There are very clear hierarchies in Congress (Speaker/Majority Leader, Majority Whip, Committee Chairs) and White House (President, Vice President, Cabinet). There is no power structure in SCOTUS: each of the justices is equal and has nobody to answer to. There are likely shadow organizations in the Congress and White House with their own (unpublished) hierarchy, but probably not in the SCOTUS due to its size and the…

Although Justices need not answer to anyone at all with perhaps the exception of defending themselves in their impeachment proceeding, the Chief does have some powers and duties, implicit ones such as designating authorship of a majority opinion when in the majority, and explicit ones such as administratively leading all of the Article II and III courts. The aclu's page is evenhanded and may be of interest. https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/role-chief-justice

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

#32

Post by Bahamut »

bigred100 wrote: post #21

I’ve only had about two years of software experience, but my (junior) opinion is that I’d prepare to spend even more of my brainpower on political cagematch fights than usual, as non-hierarchical means my “equals” are going to start trying to intercept credit, take lead on things, etc. and position themselves as de facto managers without me being able to tell them “fuck off, you’re not my manager.”

This can be headed off by not rewarding bad behavior in peer reviews/manager reviews. In addition, such behavior could be used to lay off the offending person.

Not that I'm a fan of completely flat organizations.

It should be noted that the right way to be productive in a flattish organization is to influence people - this is no different in a big company from a small company.

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

#33

Post by raedah »

The Decred open source project approves spending on proposals based on stake holder vote, 60% yes for approval. https://dcrdata.decred.org shows $17m in the treasury currently. Votes are the final say. Current and past votes are viewable on https://proposals.decred.org . Its all open source, docs https://docs.decred.org/governance/politeia/overview/ code https://github.com/decred/politeia/ voting charts https://alpha.dcrdata.org/proposals

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

#35

Post by icebraining »

DanGarthwaite wrote: post #25
fullshark wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SCOTUS > White House > Congress but I get your point.

Only by convention and precedent. FDR's threats to pack the court certainly influenced them and if implemented would have subverted them.

FDR couldn't implement that by himself, though; the bill had to be approved by Congress.

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

#36

Post by pmyteh »

papln wrote: post #24
sidlls wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are very clear hierarchies in Congress (Speaker/Majority Leader, Majority Whip, Committee Chairs) and White House (President, Vice President, Cabinet). There is no power structure in SCOTUS: each of the justices is equal and has nobody to answer to. There are likely shadow organizations in the Congress and White House with their own (unpublished) hierarchy, but probably not in the SCOTUS due to its size and the…

SCOTUS is a nearly-pure democracy. Every issue of substance is put to a vote, and everyone has freedom to act individually in anything not put to vote, along with ample funding for their desires (law clerks for work, and indivual pay for personal perks). (Namely, Q&A in session, and what they write in their opinions.) Their scope of power is sufficiently limited that favor-trading isn't very important. All that remai…

The internal politics are still interesting, though.

"The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court" by Woodward and Armstrong looked (amongst other things) at why Nixon's new Chief Justice Warren Burger seemed unable to push the court in a more consistently conservative direction despite more conservative membership. Part of the conclusion was that he just wasn't that great at playing the internal political games required to stay in control.

Incidentally, the main source for that book was eventually revealed as one of the other Justices, Potter Stewart. It's a fascinating read.

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

#37

Post by dosy »

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…

It's not just the women's movement, any postmodern "leaderphobic" group of anti-heroes will operate under this adhocratic masking of power. It's still power, but it's the power-pill that palatable to their sensibilities, suitably masked. Marxist revolutions "of the peasants" pioneered this mass delusion of flattening.

But isn't this just gaslighting people? I mean "flat" is just disempowering existing power structures, to empower a secretive cabal, that pretends to rule "benevolently" by consensus by usurping the existing "oppressive evil" but ends up just becoming worse. Prove you can actually be better, then come back and tell me how to.

This article should have been called: "Afraid of Kings. How we tried and failed to get s*it done when we need to pander to everyone's leaderphobia."

Bottom line is, this is not new hat. It's old hat. What I'd say to the author is: It's an adhorcracy. Read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Then come back and tell me how to.

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

#39

Post by [deleted] »

claudiulodro wrote: post #12

Assuming whatever you're trying to do is a good idea, my method is to just write a "heads-up"-type message and just go for it. For example, "I'm going to do foo. If anyone has any concerns or anything, please let me know". This covers your ass, provides a discussion/feedback area, and lets you actually get things done without a lengthy bike-shedding process. One important lesson I have learned in my career is that fo…

[deleted]

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

#40

Post by tialaramex »

pjc50 wrote: post #13

While I'm very much in favour of reminding everyone of Tyranny of Structurelessness and shadow hierarchies, the article is referring to a more IETF-like situation of voluntary collaboration. Here there are other sorts of shadow hierachy: - Postel decentralisation: it used to be the case that a lot of important internet functionality was run through one person. Less so these days, but there will still be critical indi…

The article makes an early mistake in describing the IETF as "membership based". Nope. You cannot join or leave the IETF, it has no members, everybody who is interested can and should participate. It likewise confuses itself by insisting on calling the hum a "vote" even though it acknowledges that humming mustn't be used to try to enumerate support which is exactly the point of voting.

The IETF process works because of _what it's for_ and could not usefully be replicated in contentious political environments. Rough consensus and running code builds SMTP but it doesn't end the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Because the IETF deliberately has no actual power, in the end the worst that can happen is you didn't agree anything and have to roll your own. You are "at" the IETF (many people never attend a physical meeting, and that's fine) to reach an agreement, and if you can't agree then too bad but it cannot stop you pressing on anyway.

This part of the model also worked for CA/B. CA/B initially exists as a meeting between two groups that both want something, the Certificate Authorities want a sales promotion tool and the Browser Vendors want better validation. But the CA/B meeting lived on long after that discussion bore fruit, because it turns out that _agreeing_ among yourselves is much better for everybody than if you all just do whatever you want and hope it works out.

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