On the startup I have Dev director, PM and on their top the CTO. I understant the different size but the startup itself is bigger than the section of the big company, still it has 1/4 of the managers in that section.

I think we need a low hierarchical company, not one completely anarchical.

Cheers

Alberto

I still think that we are discussing slightly different matters. The problem for me was not the hierarchy “per se” (there is hierarchy in marine corps as well) but organizations where decision making is put at the top (maybe calling them tayloristic is better?). Apple might be used as an example against me, but I think the right question for Apple would have been “how could a guy like Jobs manage to retain all the strong personalities in the staff, despite his attitude?”. And I don’t think it’s the money.

My concern is about the stability of the pyramid. That goes well beyond its goal. Suppose I am a founder of a smalla company. I experienced all the roles, but I need to hire. The newly hired person is fresh, and needs guidance, since he lacks skills. Perfect. When the person learns new skills …the desire for autonomy sneaks in. If it is fulfilled (healthy situation, the one you described), fine. If it’s not …the skilled person is now very likely to leave. A fresh replacement will join in reinforcing the need for a hierarchy.

What I am saying is that pyramids where decision making is at the top are dangerous, because they tend to survive well beyond the need for such a configuration. They tend to look like the one and only solution, but they’re not. And alternative configurations require a different set of skills, that people often lack. Ignoring this problem make organization fall back to what they already know.

I have to read that book. I might agree on many of the things (more than you imagine) but I don’t think that’s the only problem.

What I found interesting instead, is the fact that the pyramid fulfills immediate need of Sistem 1 in Kahneman framework. It’s the most efficient configuration in terms of intelligence devoted to organizational structure, ora at least it hits a stable minimum.

Cheers

Alberto

In the book I’m quoting The Puritan Gift it explains quite well that the form of organization that worked well in the USA until 1970 is line-of-command (the pyramid) plus staff (various department, such as accounting or personnel) where the head of departments ultimately depend on someone high in the pyramid.

All problems start when, as they say in the book, a head of acccounting gets his head out of his kennel, sniffs the air of the top of the pyramid and jumps up there, taking the place of the proper person, who probably was someone with deep knowledge of his or her industry. You put an accountant at the head of the company, and he will rule according to all he knows: costs and profits. He will ruin the company. An accountant should be the director of a company only if it is a company that sells accounting services :-)

Also, when I meant “decisions taken in the wrong place” I included also decisions taken in the wrong department. I.E. HR establishing salary policies or constraints for physical equipment. Turning wrong decisions right is an awful amount of waste.

It all boils down to GRASP “Information Expert” pattern (here I can use this shortcut! ;-) ), only …at the organizational level. If it doesn’t happen the required amount of information necessary is huge, and I doubt traditional organizations are able to cope with this problem. They normally start with cutting “feedback”, the rest comes later.

But really, I was not advocating different organizational shapes – that’s beyond by goal – only highlighting the relationship between recurring antipatterns and recurring organization structures. There’s more then one, and people can study. Then decide. But the pyramid is taken for granted.

Also, I am glad that you introduced the Scout example. It’s both good or bad. It’s good because it’s a good example, bad because it’s in an optional path. Mandatory paths such as school deliver mostly the message “decisions are taken elsewhere and there’s nothing you can do about it”. I am not saying the opposite doesn’t happen, but the overall message is the wrong one. :-(

Cheers

Alberto

it seems I’m saying “it is so!” and you reply “no it ain’t!”. I’m saying that a pyramid is a good structure for making decisions, because good managers will delegate and push most decision-making down to the proper level. You respond by saying that pyramids are bad for decision making, period. I say the problem is with incompetent management, not with the pyramid shape!

I’m interested in what makes a good manager. Not in new, exotic organizational shapes.

By the way, democracy is *not* what we want at work. We want to let the people with the right knowledge and skills to make decisions. The pyramid is meant to achieve this!

One more thing: my daughters spend a lot of their free time with the Scout movement and by 13 they’ve seen and done a lot of self-organization ;-)

Decision makers are promoted, often more for their ability to decide than for the quality of the decision taken. Improving the way decisions are taken might benefit both organizational styles.

Delegation without skills, and without decision making skills …doesn’t work. But the good thing about skills is that they can be improved.

Cheers

Brando

and thanks for the links (I haven’t read the puritan gift, but I don’t think I fall into the stereotypes you mentioned… ). Most of all, thanks for the feedback about the message delivered by my talk. And the opportunity to clarify some of it.

Pyramids and hierarchies do exist for a reason. They do solve at least one problem: “who decides here”, but they are awful beasts, because they tend to be incredibly resilient despite the original intent. And they tend to be incredibly slow when it comes to evolving. Hierarchical structures are a family some of them can be healthier than others. But the fact that decisions are taken up in the pyramid always tend to produce the same antipatterns (the ones I summarized with the Versailles pattern). People who haven’t been exposed to other forms of organization won’t probably even recognize those as antipatterns. And Italians have a serious problem with that. Church, schools, P.A. and workplaces are often organization which are not meant to evolve. You might be in your thirties and never really have had a chance to self organize. That’s very different in the US, for example. And the cocktail turns different in organizations as well (you could probably see a very wide spectrum there).

The discriminating factor is – again – decision. How many sensible decisions need to be taken in your organization? If they’re many …you have a serious problem. If they are a few, then a pyramid might still be the best choice.

But

If the need for decisions increase, a pyramid is definitely not fit for the job. Unfortunately, pyramids are stable. They’re hard to change. A posse style organization might eventually turn into a pyramid sometimes, while the opposite move is incredibly more demanding. You need a quick coup to revoke democracy and a long process to set it up. Same applies to organizations.

In general, I wasn’t advocating a revolution in the workplace. But I was trying to show that there is a wider organizational spectrum than the one we’re used to work in, and that some of the common “it’s always like that” explanations are flawed. It’s not always like that, it’s context dependent and the pyramid it’s not the only possibile context. It’s only the most common and less demanding.

Cheers

Brando