Horizontal / Flat Management Structures, Workplace Democracies

innerspaceboy · 04-04-2016, 06:22 PM

I'm alpha testing the next version of an open source Chrome add-on that we use frequently at my workplace.

Our CEO was wholly confounded by the process as I described it. As both a company president and a devout Christian, all authority in his world has always come from above. I attempted to outline the principles of a cooperative - one of horizontal management and one whose aim is simply for the betterment of the community rather than for financial compensation.

His brows furrowed deeper as I explained that the Android OS was Linux-based. And whenever I'd finish citing an example of an open source project, he always returned to the question:

"BUT WHO TELLS THEM WHAT TO DO?"

I'd really like to develop a better understanding of these systems, both for myself and so that perhaps one day I can give him a direct answer.

I'm going to be researching the logistics of horizontal / flat management structures, workplace democracies, collectivist and cooperative culture, and decentralized organizations. I'm interested in real-world examples, their operational strategies, their strengths over traditional vertical hierarchical structures, and their embrace of Open Source and Copyleft philosophy to work more effectively.

It's fascinating stuff and flat management is gaining significant traction with modern tech businesses.

Would any of our community be knowledgeable in this regard?

Neapolitan · 04-04-2016, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

Would any of our community be knowledgeable in this regard?

Well even though it an illustration ... The chart that depicts the hierarchy the top guy has only two intermediates to those on the bottom. On the other hand the guy on the far left has six intermediates to the guy on the far right, it be would eight if there were as many depicted in the flat chart as are in the hierarchy chart. Unless the flat chart is a poor representation of what a flat structure is, it seems that flat management structures would suffer from whisper-down-the-lane.

bob_32_116 · 04-05-2016, 01:02 AM

Somebody has to manage the company. Someone owns it, therefore someone has to be responsible for ensuring the company achieves its "mission", whether that be simple profit-making, betterment of a community, or whatever.

There is good management and there is bad management, but there has to be management.

The reason why most companies have a hierarchy is that it allows managers to delegate responsibility. The Romans understood this when they organised their armies.

A company needs good respectful communication between management and subordinates. "Workplace democracy" though is a bit of an unrealistic goal. Unlike a parliamentary democracy, you do not have elections. Rather, some people are paying other people to do a job. Now maybe some workers think it would be a good idea to have such elections and vote a bad manager out, but consider this: imagine you decide to renovate your house, and you employ a team of contractors to do the work. By and by, the workers decide they don't like you, or that they'd rather do the renovations in a way different from what you have specified. Should they be able to get together, vote you out, and do the work to someone else's directions? Call me naive, but I would say no.

Open Source software is somewhat different. It's not like a private company. People who supply software for it do so for their own benefit and for the benefit of other users. In many cases they do it without remuneration.

Isbjørn · 04-05-2016, 02:22 PM

^ Of course, it doesn't make sense that someone manages a workplace that they do not own. But that's not really an argument against collective management, since it can just as easily be made into an argument for collective ownership of workplaces/businesses/you-name-it.

I'll be following this thread out of interest.

OccultHawk · 04-05-2016, 05:57 PM

Since I'm a laborer I don't give a **** about the rights of owners and managers to manage how they see fit. I care about my right to speak from a voice of unified labor. I want there to be a real, organized labor movement exclusively interested in the worker. I want corporations that don't acquiesce to be destroyed. Basically, I want the far left to be as self-serving as the far right. I want everything I can take, right or wrong. I don't want the minimum wage to be $15 an hour I want it to be $1000 an hour. I want the belongings of the rich to be stripped from them and given to me. I don't care how ultimately destructive this would be because I barely have a pot to piss in as it is. It's time to tear this whole capitalist power structure down.

The Batlord · 04-05-2016, 06:00 PM

I was waiting for this to turn prole.

OccultHawk · 04-05-2016, 06:03 PM

You must be psychic.

innerspaceboy · 04-05-2016, 06:33 PM

So delighted to see everyone's feedback! Let me address each point made thus far.

First off, the illustration in the original post is indeed a very poor representation of a horizontal structure. This is much more accurate:

And the interactions of the members at the cooperative base rank would look more like this:

This model satisfies the statement that "someone must be in charge", whether that person is democratically appointed to their position or not, the point is the significant amount of direct collaboration between the majority of the members of the organization.

And I've found a succinct article from the HBR which directly addresses many of the questions posed by skeptics of flat business structures. Check this out -

Quote:

Hierarchy Is Overrated
by Tim Kastelle
Originally published in the Harvard Business Review

Maybe you’ve heard the old cliché – if you’ve got “too many chiefs,” your initiative will fail. Every time I hear it, I wonder, “Why can’t everyone be a chief?”

For instance, the Second Chance Programme is a group that raises money to help reduce homelessness among women here in Southeast Queensland. It’s achieved impressive results since being founded in 2001, and is run by a committee of about ten people. In the early days, a management consultant used the familiar chiefs/Indians line to predict they’d fail.

This kind of thinking assumes:

You need a hierarchy to succeed.
The people that do the work are of lower status than those that decide what work to do.
Organizations that don’t follow the norms are likely to fail.

I think that all of these ideas are wrong. Second Chance has certainly been very successful with their flat, non-hierarchical structure. They have achieved a great deal, while keeping their overhead close to $0. If the structure of the management committee was a problem, they would have failed by now.

But maybe this kind of structure only works for not-for-profits?

Nope. About 20% of the world’s websites are now on the WordPress platform – making it one of the most important internet companies. And yet, Automattic, the firm behind WordPress, only employs a couple hundred people, who all work remotely, with a highly autonomous flat management structure. GitHub is another highly successful firm with a similar structure.

So, maybe this structure only works for not-for-profits and software firms with open source platforms?

Well, Valve is a gaming company that makes Half Life, Portal and many other popular games. Their software is proprietary. And they are famous for not having bosses at all. And 37Signals has a structure that looks a lot like Automattic’s, while building software that enables distributed collaboration, such as Basecamp and Ruby on Rails.

Ok, then, flat structures work for not-for-profits and software startups. But you surely can’t run, say, a big manufacturing firm like this, can you?

Actually, you can. Take a look at W.L. Gore. Gore is one of the most successful firms in the world. They have more than 10,000 employees, with basically three levels in their organizational hierarchy. There is the CEO (elected democratically), a handful of functional heads, and everyone else. All decision-making is done through self-managing teams of 8-12 people: hiring, pay, which projects to work on, everything. Rather than relying on a command-and-control structure, current CEO Terri Kelly says:

“It’s far better to rely upon a broad base of individuals and leaders who share a common set of values and feel personal ownership for the overall success of the organization. These responsible and empowered individuals will serve as much better watchdogs than any single, dominant leader or bureaucratic structure.”

They’ve had challenges in maintaining their structure as they’ve grown, but the remain one of the most innovative and most profitable firms in the world.

But all of these examples have had flat structures from the day they were founded – you couldn’t do something like this in a firm that has been operating for a while with the normal hierarchical structure, could you?

That’s exactly what Ricardo Semler and his team at Semco did when he joined the firm in 1983. In the 30 years since, the Brazilian conglomerate has continually worked at distributing decision-making authority out to everyone. One of the firm’s key performance indicators is how long Semler can go between making decisions. The time keeps getting longer, while the firm has maintained around 20% growth for nearly 30 years now.

All of these are examples where everyone is a chief. The flat organizational structure can work anywhere. This works best when:

The environment is changing rapidly. Firms organized around small, autonomous teams are much more nimble than large hierarchies. This makes it easier to respond to change.
Your main point of differentiation is innovation. Firms organized with a flat structure tend to be much more innovative – if this is important strategically, then you should be flat.
The organization has a shared purpose. This is what has carried Second Chance through their tough times – their shared commitment to the women they are helping. While the objectives may differ, all of the firms discussed here have a strong central purpose as well.

There is a growing body of evidence that shows that organizations with flat structures outperform those with more traditional hierarchies in most situations (see the work of Gary Hamel for a good summary of these results). But while we are seeing an increasing number of firms using flat structures, they are still relatively rare. Why is this so?

It’s not because people haven’t heard of the idea. There have been more than 200 case studies of Gore and Semco alone, and I would bet that nearly every MBA program in the world includes at least one case study looking at a firm with this kind of structure. But there are other obstacles:

Many people don’t believe in democracy in the workplace. Even people who adamantly oppose small amounts of central planning in government are perfectly happy to have the strategy of even very large firms set by just a handful of people.
Even if you do believe in democracy, it can be hard to imagine work without hierarchy. The “normal” structure is so deeply ingrained, and so widespread, that it can challenging to even think of an alternative in the first place. That’s why these case studies are so important.
Fear of the unusual. John Maynard Keynes said, “Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.” Unfortunately, this is still largely true today.
It’s hard to change organizational structures. Despite the positive example of Semco, in reality it is very hard to change organizational structures. Even with Semco, it took a financial crisis to trigger the change in thinking. It takes a strong belief in democracy in the workplace along with a resistance to criticism to stay the course and execute such a change.

However, as digital technologies make it easier to work in a distributed manner, and we enter the social era, flat structures will become increasingly common. There are sound business reasons for treating people with dignity, for providing autonomy, and for organizing among small teams rather than large hierarchies.

It’s time to start reimagining management. Making everyone a chief is a good place to start.

- Winston Smith

OccultHawk · 04-05-2016, 06:49 PM

Well businesses are designed to make money not decisions. Equality invites people to feel like they deserve equal pay. So naturally the I think you work model is always going to be the standard. As a laborer my suggestion is I'll sit in the ****ing office with a view and drink lattes and you go actually manufacture the product or serve the food or sell the **** or whatever it is I do.

**Frownland** · 04-05-2016, 06:53 PM

I think that while it would work, it can also be achieved through communication between the lower and upper classes of a business that operates on hierarchy. The increase in communication can really ease the friction of mobility to the top (or to the bottom). With this, it is important for the higher ups to not only be hearing the ideas of the lower ranks, but that they listen to them as well. It allows for people to be more happy about their work conditions, which increases their productivity since that would likely be the key subject of their thoughts on the company, which benefits the company. It also deconstructs the echo chamber that a lot of people at the top might find themselves in, although that might not apply to companies with very narrow typecasting hiring policies.

04-05-2016, 02:22 PM	#4 (permalink)
Isbjørn cooler commie than elph Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: In a hole, help Posts: 2,811	^ Of course, it doesn't make sense that someone manages a workplace that they do not own. But that's not really an argument against collective management, since it can just as easily be made into an argument for collective ownership of workplaces/businesses/you-name-it. I'll be following this thread out of interest. __________________ fast(ml) Hear me play the guitar Look, mom! I got a journal

04-05-2016, 06:53 PM	#10 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	I think that while it would work, it can also be achieved through communication between the lower and upper classes of a business that operates on hierarchy. The increase in communication can really ease the friction of mobility to the top (or to the bottom). With this, it is important for the higher ups to not only be hearing the ideas of the lower ranks, but that they listen to them as well. It allows for people to be more happy about their work conditions, which increases their productivity since that would likely be the key subject of their thoughts on the company, which benefits the company. It also deconstructs the echo chamber that a lot of people at the top might find themselves in, although that might not apply to companies with very narrow typecasting hiring policies. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

04-05-2016, 01:02 AM	#3 (permalink)
bob_32_116 Music Addict Join Date: Mar 2016 Location: 32S 116E Posts: 324	Somebody has to manage the company. Someone owns it, therefore someone has to be responsible for ensuring the company achieves its "mission", whether that be simple profit-making, betterment of a community, or whatever. There is good management and there is bad management, but there has to be management. The reason why most companies have a hierarchy is that it allows managers to delegate responsibility. The Romans understood this when they organised their armies. A company needs good respectful communication between management and subordinates. "Workplace democracy" though is a bit of an unrealistic goal. Unlike a parliamentary democracy, you do not have elections. Rather, some people are paying other people to do a job. Now maybe some workers think it would be a good idea to have such elections and vote a bad manager out, but consider this: imagine you decide to renovate your house, and you employ a team of contractors to do the work. By and by, the workers decide they don't like you, or that they'd rather do the renovations in a way different from what you have specified. Should they be able to get together, vote you out, and do the work to someone else's directions? Call me naive, but I would say no. Open Source software is somewhat different. It's not like a private company. People who supply software for it do so for their own benefit and for the benefit of other users. In many cases they do it without remuneration.

04-05-2016, 05:57 PM	#5 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	Since I'm a laborer I don't give a **** about the rights of owners and managers to manage how they see fit. I care about my right to speak from a voice of unified labor. I want there to be a real, organized labor movement exclusively interested in the worker. I want corporations that don't acquiesce to be destroyed. Basically, I want the far left to be as self-serving as the far right. I want everything I can take, right or wrong. I don't want the minimum wage to be $15 an hour I want it to be $1000 an hour. I want the belongings of the rich to be stripped from them and given to me. I don't care how ultimately destructive this would be because I barely have a pot to piss in as it is. It's time to tear this whole capitalist power structure down.

04-05-2016, 06:03 PM	#7 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	You must be psychic.

04-05-2016, 06:49 PM	#9 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	Well businesses are designed to make money not decisions. Equality invites people to feel like they deserve equal pay. So naturally the I think you work model is always going to be the standard. As a laborer my suggestion is I'll sit in the **ing office with a view and drink lattes and you go actually manufacture the product or serve the food or sell the ** or whatever it is I do.