OuiShare Fest 2016 in 3 tweets: Hierarchy
In corporate life, one of the first lessons you learn is the inevitable pyramid shape of the hierarchy. I remember doing work experience as a teenager, playing with Powerpoint to create fictional org charts, depicting the boss as a fearsome predator, with the underlings as her prey. It’s a simple food chain, where those at the top have absolute power over those below. It feeds on fear.
Armin Steuernagel likened mergers and acquisitions to modern day slavery, with good reason. Employees rarely feel like masters of their own destiny — more like feudal serfs. I’ve worked at big companies that have engulfed their rivals, and I’ve worked at small firms that have been swallowed up. I have never seen a truly successful take over, from either side. When businesses are bought and sold, morale flounders. The founders cash out, and the most talented team members flee.
The Valve Handbook was my first introduction to alternative structures, back in 2012. Desks on wheels? Sign me up! I emailed it straight to the CEO of the media firm I was with at the time. Unsurprisingly, he was less enthused. The problem with holacracy, and other systems for flattening hierarchy, is that of mobilising support from top to bottom, and managing the transition period.
The panel on bossless organizations examined exactly that challenge. At Poult, Camille Panassié stressed the importance of helping employees learn the new skills needed to self-manage. Not everyone relishes the prospect of unlearning old habits: without a planned transition path, lingering resistance may sabotage the new setup.
Nicolas d'Audiffret suggested rotating bosses as one strategy for distributing power without descending into anarchy. Teams can be mobilised around short term projects, giving everyone a chance to lead over time. Alternatively, people can belong to multiple teams simultaneously, enjoying a different status in each.
Inspired by Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations, Buffer experimented with a bossless system. They found that the benefits of self-management do not necessarily demand a flat structure. Rodolphe Dutel argued that natural hierarchy emerges, through deference to experience and skill: situational leadership needs to be nurtured through a supportive culture. Transparency builds the trust needed for self management to take hold: in structure, in compensation, and in all communication.
Next up, Identity.
Startuple is François Hoehl and Sinead Doyle. Find out more at startuple.works
