The article touts transparency as being the virtue that led them to a flat organization. I'd argue that _it's within an explicit hierarchy where transparency (e.g. who makes decision, who earns more, who gets promoted) actually flourishes_ with the lowest cost. As other commenters have pointed out, a hierarchy will emerge regardless, however, transparency will be subdued beneath secret cabals and handshakes.
No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
51–60 of 325 posts
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#52Earlier 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.
Convention and precedent (and tradition) are also forms of hierarchical power. Those who assert them in the course of making a decision exercise power over those who intend to deny them.
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with your point but in the end the article was more about efficient decision making in engineering teams and less about flat organizations. Up-voted both the article and your comment :) Reminds me about the stuff I've read about Valve. In theory, and maybe if you have strong healthy de facto leadership it could work. In practice it seems more like an excuse to dodge responsibility, leading to pretty toxic pla…
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 know who my bosses will be during the interview process. As people like to say, interviews are a two way process.
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#54Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#55I 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.
> 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.
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#56I 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…
A few years ago I joined a company with "self-organizing" teams, which have many similarities to "structureless". It was an awful experience, for me at least. Many important choices were made by people trying to avoid ruffling the feathers of the least-mature team member. My woes were likely compounded by being mildly affected by Asperger syndrome: First, I have an innate preference for clear organization and structu…
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 teams, but employees generally work towards what they feel is the best solution.
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#57Assuming 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…
We used to have an engineer who used this maneuver. He abused it because it was effective. We do have an issue on our team with engineers being indifferent to new ideas, and our manager loves consensus. Regardless, this engineer thought his ideas were always "good ideas." They weren't. He was eventually chewed out by our manager because he was becoming a passive-aggressive tyrant. He left the company soon after that.…
I second the your conclusion and GP's. "Flat" / "self-organizing" / etc. teams seam prone to different, not fewer, pathologies than teams with explicit hierarchies.
I suspect that the two approaches are vulnerable to different, but specific, mixes of personalities.
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#58I 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…
While I agree with something of an abstraction of what they're saying, when I read things like this, it's hard for me to see anything but a person that wants to hijack the tyranny for themselves.
The Jo Freeman article was written in retrospect to her own experiences with the feminist movement in the 1960s - she has another article - "Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood" - that I think illustrates very well that in spite of her belief of the movement, she had been hurt by its methodology (which was by no means exclusive to the feminist movement, as we see here) and not to mention was in no position to be able to "take power." She wrote these things in hope that the movement could course-correct, not out of some calculated Machiavellian strategy.
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#59I 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…
A few years ago I joined a company with "self-organizing" teams, which have many similarities to "structureless". It was an awful experience, for me at least. Many important choices were made by people trying to avoid ruffling the feathers of the least-mature team member. My woes were likely compounded by being mildly affected by Asperger syndrome: First, I have an innate preference for clear organization and structu…
how did you manage to land a job in the first place?
Re: No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few years ago I joined a company with "self-organizing" teams, which have many similarities to "structureless". It was an awful experience, for me at least. Many important choices were made by people trying to avoid ruffling the feathers of the least-mature team member. My woes were likely compounded by being mildly affected by Asperger syndrome: First, I have an innate preference for clear organization and structu…
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...