8 ms·

Flat Will Kill You, Eventually: Why Every Company Needs Structure

84 points by vskarine 11y ago

Sleaker 11y ago
Currently working at a place that considers itself 'flat' I can say that it's one of the most confusing things ever, and the management tries to continually tell me that it's such a great thing that everyone can take ownership of things themselves. It's a bunch of bull really, it just means no one has to take responsibility for failures to meet goals, there's no pressure to meet deadline and there's no actual ownership of product. This article hits all the points on the head about said flat structures, and how they don't work at all. They breed distrust, and resentment toward management because of an apparent (or real) lack of defining what's expected.
- Ntrails 11y ago
  Whilst I don't doubt your experience - your anecdote doesn't mean that there can never be a functional "flat" structure for a business and that any attempt to implement such a thing will destroy your company. I don't really think the article comes close to showing that either, but that's just an opinion.
- tonecluster 11y ago
  I have also found that the flatness fails quickly when the loudest, most aggressive, least-respectful-of-authority, best-dev-in-the-room type takes the (de-facto) leadership position, bullying others who challenge him. Schoolyard stuff, to be sure, and since most people don't like conflict for extended periods of time, you end up with a local "leader" (scare quotes intended) despite the intention to remain flat. It's the "rock star dev who's also a jerk", and eventually it creates chaos.
  - hodwik 11y ago
    I actually think that's where flatness works best. Rather than being whoever can kiss the most ass and not upset the boss (the usual system), a flat system ends up being a battle for leadership which puts the smart and commanding at the top. "Rock star dev who's also a jerk" is who should be the boss.
    - jacques_chester 11y ago
      Where I work we have a role called "project anchor". It comes with no extra pay, no special perks, no particular enumerated powers. The anchor does not determine product features or direction, that's the product manager's role. The anchor doesn't hire, fire, reward or punish other engineers, that's the engineering manager's role. The anchor isn't necessarily the strongest engineer on the project, either. Anchors are mostly there to break ties and hold project context over a longer time frame. A founding anchor has a strong influence on the project's technical direction, but it's not a fiat power. You still need to discuss it with your peers. And it works pretty well, because the only reason you get asked to anchor is due to the feedback of your peers. Then again, our hiring process has a notorious bias against rockstar jerks.
      - mattip 11y ago
        Is there more info around about this style of project management? My google-foo is not getting any hits
        jacques_chester 11y ago
        I work for Pivotal Labs. Our starting point is XP for engineering, Lean for design and product management. Daily standup, weekly IPM, weekly retro. Lots of people know us mostly for Pivotal Tracker, which is built to support our daily and weekly workflow. On any given engagement, we always argue for a minimum team of one product manager, one designer, two engineers. We used to be a purely engineering shop, but (before my time) the thinking grew to include all three roles in each project. Previously anchors were also de facto product managers, which is a tricky and exhausting doubling-up of duties. When this happens now, we call it "super-anchoring" and it's seen as a project smell. I've had to act as a super-anchor once or twice; it's how I learnt that having a separate product management role is essential to a healthy project. I like how we work. As an engineer I trust product managers to worry about what to build next and why, I trust designers to be across the user's needs and UX flow and conceptualisation. They trust me to pick a simple, robust engineering solution without gold-plating. Anyone can give input, of course. I've had PMs make great engineering suggestions. I've seen engineers with UX breakthroughs. Engineers in an IPM ask all sorts of fiddly questions that will typically lead to product changes. We ultimately own our own roles and get final say on them. It works because it's built on mutual trust and respect.
  - rmc 11y ago
    Sounds like "The Tyranny of Structurelessness"
jacques_chester 11y ago
Adding one thing not addressed directly: sometimes people disagree and there needs to be a decision mechanism. Consensus is obviously preferable. But it scales very poorly. A simple workaround is to nominate someone as the tie-breaker. To avoid secondary rounds of nonsense, you try to pick someone with the respect of their peers.
- hopsoft 11y ago
  Conway's Law & micro-services help maintain flatter organizations at least in tech focused companies. When disagreements arise & consensus is hard, the various parties can simply introduce a new service boundary & go their different ways.
  - jacques_chester 11y ago
    I'm not sure if this an argument for "true" flatness so much as it's an argument for self-organising teams.
  - Scarblac 11y ago
    We have exactly that. Eight microservices that should have been two, all using slightly different technlogy, and still nobody buys our product since everybody disagree on what customers actually need.
- tdaltonc 11y ago
  > Consensus is obviously preferable. Holocracy actually doesn't use consensus. The mechanism in Holocracy for decision making can be summarized as "do whatever you think is right to fulfill your stated role. No consensus nessesary. If the way your doing thing is actively preventing someone from fulfilling their role, then you two work it out (through a strict mediation process) but other people's opinion of what you should do is irrelevant (i.e. No consensous). Only the roles directly effected have to agree." Consensous seeking usually descends in to hypotheticals, theory, and butt covering. far better, according to Holocracy to just let people animate their assigned roles however they think is best.
mentos 11y ago
Can anyone comment on if Valve is as flat as I have heard and what makes it work for them?
- jblow 11y ago
  You are presuming it actually works for Valve, which is not an uncontroversial notion.
  - jacques_chester 11y ago
    It's controversial because we don't know if it would keep working without a massive free cashflow. (My guess is: it would not).
    - jblow 11y ago
      That is not even what I am talking about. I know a number of people who have quit Valve and almost all of them would cite organizational dysfunction as one of the top reasons for quitting. I don't know whether that is true -- I have never worked there -- and I don't wish to spread any ill rumors about Valve. I'm just saying that I know a bunch of people who have worked there who think the flat thing is one of Valve's biggest problems (another one being the incentive structure; of course these two things go hand in hand).
      - jacques_chester 11y ago
        Gotcha. I haven't worked there either; but I find the boosterism I sometimes observe to be annoying because of the confounding factor of massive free cashflow.
- Macha 11y ago
  So as far as I understand it, the flat structure applies to devs/designers etc. in Valve HQ. Their customer support/sales people are apparently much more traditional
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
seancoleman 11y ago
Another issue with flat structure is that once implicit management roles arise, other people tend to hold those individuals responsible for results even as they lack official support for the role. It builds resentment towards them and puts them in a difficult position.
bane 11y ago
My previous comments on flat structures (related to holacracy, but works for any flat org theory): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8270601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8270601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9513604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9513604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9367390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9367390
mstade 11y ago
In my experience, the thing that I've seen kill the motivation and productivity of any team, is the feeling – true or not – that the team isn't being listened to. From what I've seen, most people seem to be able to cope with most any structure, but if feedback goes (seemingly, at least) unnoticed then that more than anything will kill their motivation. No amount of flat, or structure, or holymoly organization voodoo will fix a team that's lost trust in their ability to do anything because they aren't being listened to.
zaidf 11y ago
My understanding is that you can be flat and still have a project lead who is in charge of driving the project to the finish line. I'm skeptical of flat myself but I'm not sure if it is to blame in your situation. Rather, you seemed to need a lead whose job is to ultimately make the project succeed.
sparkzilla 11y ago
Flat systems value the accumulation of power over the actual work done. So if you are good at working the system, then you'll do fine. Otherwise, you have no protection. Wikipedia is a good example of a flat system where people accumulate power in other ways, usually by banding with others to enforce a particular point of view. While the goal is ostensibly creating content, much of the time is taken up on power disputes that are not aligned with the goal of the organization. This political infighting leads inevitably to harassment of those who do not fit the system. In Wikipedia's case, minorities, women, and non-aggressive users find it difficult to gain power from the entrenched power groups, while those in power think nothing is wrong because they erroneously think the flat system gives everyone a fair chance. Combined with a lack of leadership, flat systems result in inefficient processes and inconsistent work compared to hierarchical systems where everyone knows their role and a leader guides the project, and has the final say.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  Except every problem you just listed with flat systems is endemic in hierarchical systems too, to the same extent (including everyone in power thinking the system gives everyone a fair chance). Nothing about an org chart and formal channels of action has ever stopped politics and informal channels.
LukaAl 11y ago
This article is very interesting but fails to address one point. Why companies go for "Flat" or "Holocracy" organizations? I know three reasons: - People tend to hate managers, they don't trust them. - Flat team are faster removing the management complexity. - There's more flexibility and more creativity around the problem tackled by the team. The last reason is reasonable but is true applied for small unit inside the bigger organization, not the whole organization, as this article explains well. Nothing prevent to create a small unit with a specific task inside a bigger organization and to organize this unit (usually made by "star" employee) in a flat structure. The second reason is disputable, it doesn't scale has the article suggest. But the first reason is not addressed. And it is the real issue. I think everyone had terrible bosses and great bosses. We usually remember terrible managers as an example of the average managers (Mental association: Dilbert's Pointy Hair Boss) while we consider the great bosses we had as mentors, role models, guide. And we forget that they were also our manager. It is a form of selection bias. There's also another issue at play, changing organizational structure, trying Flat or Holocracy is easy (I'm not saying that it's easy to do it right, it's easy to give it a try). Promoting the right person, with the right skills is difficult. And if you promote the wrong person (it happens) removing from a managerial position or moving him to a position that is a better fit is extremely difficult. So we all decide to do what is easy instead of what is difficult. Not sure I could blame someone, it is the people mindset, but doesn't mean that what is easy is also correct while what is difficult, when done right, proved to be correct.
- amorphid 11y ago
  I'd say that people tend to dislike crappy managers. No one (rational) actually hates a manager that makes their life easier.
  - sanderjd 11y ago
    There is a lot of talk about how the problem is "bad" or "crappy" managers, which I think allows many of us in the vast masses of untrained tech managers to feel warmer and fuzzier, because while we might not really know what we're doing, we're good-natured and right-thinking, so surely we're not crappy managers! In reality, I think mediocre management is the much larger problem. Or put another way, the idea that management skills are not something to be invested heavily in, but rather something to be "figured out". It may be true that a well-managed organization full of good professional managers is more efficient than less management-focused structures, but I'm not convinced that most organizations are willing to invest the resources to hire or train their way into having one of those, so other structures are a sensible alternative to explore.
discardorama 11y ago
> There’s an impulse among companies these days to differentiate themselves .... or most recently and most astonishingly, [by] raising your minimum salary to $70,000 per year. Really? Raising the minimum wage was about "differentiating" themselves, and not out of the realization that everyone needs a comfortable wage to live on? I'm sorry, but I can't take an analysis by such a person seriously. This attitude demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding.
fernandotakai 11y ago
counter-point -- olark (a ycombinator company) uses flat-ish hierarchy and works quite well https://blog.olark.com/our-world-is-no-longer-flat https://blog.olark.com/our-world-is-no-longer-flat (disclosure: i used to work for olark, and their system works quite well)
- fingerprinter 11y ago
  This isn't a real counter-point, imo. This basically says "flat didn't scale, so we introduced some structure or other workarounds, though 'teams' can stay flat". That basically is called hierarchy by a different term. And I suspect, as most with quite a bit of experience would, that as olark grows, more layers (aka, hierarchy) would be introduced. It's natural and it's fine. It's fine! I know it's a dirty word, but hierarchy is fine. It really is. I contend it's NOT the problem that people want to solve, rather they want to solve a different one. It's the classic case of treating the symptoms and not the disease. I highly suspect that in most flat companies, the real thing people are after is some subset of [trust, autonomy, mission, vision, ownership, accountability, flexibility, empowerment] etc. But, instead of focusing on those, the focus shifts to the structure. If in solving for the subset it is found that structure is at fault, by all means give it a go. That is not how I've seen it done, though. Rather, people /assume/ flat is better with no mindfully explicit reasons why they would adopt it.
mempko 11y ago
Flat doesn't work because people from childhood on have been taught to listen to teacher, listen to boss, listen to parent. Is it any wonder people don't know how to work together independently of authority figures? I think some civic training would be good for people working in flat organizations. They need to be un-educated.
- nickff 11y ago
  >"I think some civic training would be good for people working in flat organizations. They need to be un-educated." Do you mean 'de-educated' or 're-educated'? There are plenty of uneducated people. You asssert that flat organizations could do well, but without any examples or evidence to back you up, I am inclined to disagree. If flat organizations were better, I would expect that some out of the hundreds of thousands (if not more) companies in the developed world would use that system.
  - mempko 11y ago
    Slavery lasted over thousand years as an economic system. Feudalism lasted just as long. Your argument back then would have been "if capitalist firms were better, I would expect some. People in the feudalist world would use that system". As a matter of fact, there are thousands or such flat firms. Just as during feudalism there were thousands of capitalist firms that would fail. Failure is does not mean it won't work in 10, 50 or 100 years. There will be a time when we think of managers the same way we think of kings now.
    - nickff 11y ago
      It's possible that flat organizations are the future, but it is not true that all organizations were lord-serf in feudal times or that slave labor was the only sort of labor in its time (, in fact slavery still exists). Please show some examples of flat firms, which are not the highly centralized sort described in the OP, I am interested in reading about them. As far as I have seen, all so-called flat organizations are actually very centralized for all important decisions.
discardorama 11y ago
I think there be trouble on both ends of the spectrum: too flat, and too hierarchical. I think there's a sweet spot in the middle: my gut-feeling is about log_10 (N) + 1 layers, where N = number of employees.
dreamfactory2 11y ago
It sounds like the problem isn't flatness so much as a complete absence of mission and direction. Any team needs a mission to organise itself around solving
paulajohnson 11y ago
Whenever this comes up in management theory I'm always reminded of this article. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm The setting is radical feminism rather than tech management, but the drivers are the same and so are the results.
highCs 11y ago
Flat structure is possible, Valve Software has 0 managers: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...
xj9 11y ago
Flat will only kill you if you do a half-assed job of it. Functional flat organizations require motivated members. If you have a goal that everyone can agree on, and you trust those people to stay on target, you don't need structure. The unfortunate truth is that traditional businesses will never be able to motivate their employees enough to make this work at any kind of scale. You have no reason to care that much, especially not long term. Personally, I think workers-coops are the answer. But that remains to be seen.

84 points by vskarine 11y ago

Currently working at a place that considers itself 'flat' I can say that it's one of the most confusing things ever, and the management tries to continually tell me that it's such a great thing that everyone can take ownership of things themselves. It's a bunch of bull really, it just means no one has to take responsibility for failures to meet goals, there's no pressure to meet deadline and there's no actual ownership of product. This article hits all the points on the head about said flat structures, and how they don't work at all. They breed distrust, and resentment toward management because of an apparent (or real) lack of defining what's expected.

Ntrails 11y ago
Whilst I don't doubt your experience - your anecdote doesn't mean that there can never be a functional "flat" structure for a business and that any attempt to implement such a thing will destroy your company. I don't really think the article comes close to showing that either, but that's just an opinion.
tonecluster 11y ago
I have also found that the flatness fails quickly when the loudest, most aggressive, least-respectful-of-authority, best-dev-in-the-room type takes the (de-facto) leadership position, bullying others who challenge him. Schoolyard stuff, to be sure, and since most people don't like conflict for extended periods of time, you end up with a local "leader" (scare quotes intended) despite the intention to remain flat. It's the "rock star dev who's also a jerk", and eventually it creates chaos.
- hodwik 11y ago
  I actually think that's where flatness works best. Rather than being whoever can kiss the most ass and not upset the boss (the usual system), a flat system ends up being a battle for leadership which puts the smart and commanding at the top. "Rock star dev who's also a jerk" is who should be the boss.
  - jacques_chester 11y ago
    Where I work we have a role called "project anchor". It comes with no extra pay, no special perks, no particular enumerated powers. The anchor does not determine product features or direction, that's the product manager's role. The anchor doesn't hire, fire, reward or punish other engineers, that's the engineering manager's role. The anchor isn't necessarily the strongest engineer on the project, either. Anchors are mostly there to break ties and hold project context over a longer time frame. A founding anchor has a strong influence on the project's technical direction, but it's not a fiat power. You still need to discuss it with your peers. And it works pretty well, because the only reason you get asked to anchor is due to the feedback of your peers. Then again, our hiring process has a notorious bias against rockstar jerks.
    - mattip 11y ago
      Is there more info around about this style of project management? My google-foo is not getting any hits
      - jacques_chester 11y ago
        I work for Pivotal Labs. Our starting point is XP for engineering, Lean for design and product management. Daily standup, weekly IPM, weekly retro. Lots of people know us mostly for Pivotal Tracker, which is built to support our daily and weekly workflow. On any given engagement, we always argue for a minimum team of one product manager, one designer, two engineers. We used to be a purely engineering shop, but (before my time) the thinking grew to include all three roles in each project. Previously anchors were also de facto product managers, which is a tricky and exhausting doubling-up of duties. When this happens now, we call it "super-anchoring" and it's seen as a project smell. I've had to act as a super-anchor once or twice; it's how I learnt that having a separate product management role is essential to a healthy project. I like how we work. As an engineer I trust product managers to worry about what to build next and why, I trust designers to be across the user's needs and UX flow and conceptualisation. They trust me to pick a simple, robust engineering solution without gold-plating. Anyone can give input, of course. I've had PMs make great engineering suggestions. I've seen engineers with UX breakthroughs. Engineers in an IPM ask all sorts of fiddly questions that will typically lead to product changes. We ultimately own our own roles and get final say on them. It works because it's built on mutual trust and respect.
- rmc 11y ago
  Sounds like "The Tyranny of Structurelessness"

jacques_chester 11y ago

Adding one thing not addressed directly: sometimes people disagree and there needs to be a decision mechanism. Consensus is obviously preferable. But it scales very poorly. A simple workaround is to nominate someone as the tie-breaker. To avoid secondary rounds of nonsense, you try to pick someone with the respect of their peers.

hopsoft 11y ago
Conway's Law & micro-services help maintain flatter organizations at least in tech focused companies. When disagreements arise & consensus is hard, the various parties can simply introduce a new service boundary & go their different ways.
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  I'm not sure if this an argument for "true" flatness so much as it's an argument for self-organising teams.
- Scarblac 11y ago
  We have exactly that. Eight microservices that should have been two, all using slightly different technlogy, and still nobody buys our product since everybody disagree on what customers actually need.
tdaltonc 11y ago
> Consensus is obviously preferable. Holocracy actually doesn't use consensus. The mechanism in Holocracy for decision making can be summarized as "do whatever you think is right to fulfill your stated role. No consensus nessesary. If the way your doing thing is actively preventing someone from fulfilling their role, then you two work it out (through a strict mediation process) but other people's opinion of what you should do is irrelevant (i.e. No consensous). Only the roles directly effected have to agree." Consensous seeking usually descends in to hypotheticals, theory, and butt covering. far better, according to Holocracy to just let people animate their assigned roles however they think is best.

mentos 11y ago

Can anyone comment on if Valve is as flat as I have heard and what makes it work for them?

jblow 11y ago
You are presuming it actually works for Valve, which is not an uncontroversial notion.
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  It's controversial because we don't know if it would keep working without a massive free cashflow. (My guess is: it would not).
  - jblow 11y ago
    That is not even what I am talking about. I know a number of people who have quit Valve and almost all of them would cite organizational dysfunction as one of the top reasons for quitting. I don't know whether that is true -- I have never worked there -- and I don't wish to spread any ill rumors about Valve. I'm just saying that I know a bunch of people who have worked there who think the flat thing is one of Valve's biggest problems (another one being the incentive structure; of course these two things go hand in hand).
    - jacques_chester 11y ago
      Gotcha. I haven't worked there either; but I find the boosterism I sometimes observe to be annoying because of the confounding factor of massive free cashflow.
Macha 11y ago
So as far as I understand it, the flat structure applies to devs/designers etc. in Valve HQ. Their customer support/sales people are apparently much more traditional
InclinedPlane 11y ago

seancoleman 11y ago

Another issue with flat structure is that once implicit management roles arise, other people tend to hold those individuals responsible for results even as they lack official support for the role. It builds resentment towards them and puts them in a difficult position.

bane 11y ago

My previous comments on flat structures (related to holacracy, but works for any flat org theory): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8270601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8270601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9513604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9513604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9367390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9367390

mstade 11y ago

In my experience, the thing that I've seen kill the motivation and productivity of any team, is the feeling – true or not – that the team isn't being listened to. From what I've seen, most people seem to be able to cope with most any structure, but if feedback goes (seemingly, at least) unnoticed then that more than anything will kill their motivation. No amount of flat, or structure, or holymoly organization voodoo will fix a team that's lost trust in their ability to do anything because they aren't being listened to.

zaidf 11y ago

My understanding is that you can be flat and still have a project lead who is in charge of driving the project to the finish line. I'm skeptical of flat myself but I'm not sure if it is to blame in your situation. Rather, you seemed to need a lead whose job is to ultimately make the project succeed.

sparkzilla 11y ago

Flat systems value the accumulation of power over the actual work done. So if you are good at working the system, then you'll do fine. Otherwise, you have no protection. Wikipedia is a good example of a flat system where people accumulate power in other ways, usually by banding with others to enforce a particular point of view. While the goal is ostensibly creating content, much of the time is taken up on power disputes that are not aligned with the goal of the organization. This political infighting leads inevitably to harassment of those who do not fit the system. In Wikipedia's case, minorities, women, and non-aggressive users find it difficult to gain power from the entrenched power groups, while those in power think nothing is wrong because they erroneously think the flat system gives everyone a fair chance. Combined with a lack of leadership, flat systems result in inefficient processes and inconsistent work compared to hierarchical systems where everyone knows their role and a leader guides the project, and has the final say.

Avshalom 11y ago
Except every problem you just listed with flat systems is endemic in hierarchical systems too, to the same extent (including everyone in power thinking the system gives everyone a fair chance). Nothing about an org chart and formal channels of action has ever stopped politics and informal channels.

LukaAl 11y ago

This article is very interesting but fails to address one point. Why companies go for "Flat" or "Holocracy" organizations? I know three reasons: - People tend to hate managers, they don't trust them. - Flat team are faster removing the management complexity. - There's more flexibility and more creativity around the problem tackled by the team. The last reason is reasonable but is true applied for small unit inside the bigger organization, not the whole organization, as this article explains well. Nothing prevent to create a small unit with a specific task inside a bigger organization and to organize this unit (usually made by "star" employee) in a flat structure. The second reason is disputable, it doesn't scale has the article suggest. But the first reason is not addressed. And it is the real issue. I think everyone had terrible bosses and great bosses. We usually remember terrible managers as an example of the average managers (Mental association: Dilbert's Pointy Hair Boss) while we consider the great bosses we had as mentors, role models, guide. And we forget that they were also our manager. It is a form of selection bias. There's also another issue at play, changing organizational structure, trying Flat or Holocracy is easy (I'm not saying that it's easy to do it right, it's easy to give it a try). Promoting the right person, with the right skills is difficult. And if you promote the wrong person (it happens) removing from a managerial position or moving him to a position that is a better fit is extremely difficult. So we all decide to do what is easy instead of what is difficult. Not sure I could blame someone, it is the people mindset, but doesn't mean that what is easy is also correct while what is difficult, when done right, proved to be correct.

amorphid 11y ago
I'd say that people tend to dislike crappy managers. No one (rational) actually hates a manager that makes their life easier.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  There is a lot of talk about how the problem is "bad" or "crappy" managers, which I think allows many of us in the vast masses of untrained tech managers to feel warmer and fuzzier, because while we might not really know what we're doing, we're good-natured and right-thinking, so surely we're not crappy managers! In reality, I think mediocre management is the much larger problem. Or put another way, the idea that management skills are not something to be invested heavily in, but rather something to be "figured out". It may be true that a well-managed organization full of good professional managers is more efficient than less management-focused structures, but I'm not convinced that most organizations are willing to invest the resources to hire or train their way into having one of those, so other structures are a sensible alternative to explore.

discardorama 11y ago

> There’s an impulse among companies these days to differentiate themselves .... or most recently and most astonishingly, [by] raising your minimum salary to $70,000 per year. Really? Raising the minimum wage was about "differentiating" themselves, and not out of the realization that everyone needs a comfortable wage to live on? I'm sorry, but I can't take an analysis by such a person seriously. This attitude demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding.

fernandotakai 11y ago

counter-point -- olark (a ycombinator company) uses flat-ish hierarchy and works quite well https://blog.olark.com/our-world-is-no-longer-flat https://blog.olark.com/our-world-is-no-longer-flat (disclosure: i used to work for olark, and their system works quite well)

fingerprinter 11y ago
This isn't a real counter-point, imo. This basically says "flat didn't scale, so we introduced some structure or other workarounds, though 'teams' can stay flat". That basically is called hierarchy by a different term. And I suspect, as most with quite a bit of experience would, that as olark grows, more layers (aka, hierarchy) would be introduced. It's natural and it's fine. It's fine! I know it's a dirty word, but hierarchy is fine. It really is. I contend it's NOT the problem that people want to solve, rather they want to solve a different one. It's the classic case of treating the symptoms and not the disease. I highly suspect that in most flat companies, the real thing people are after is some subset of [trust, autonomy, mission, vision, ownership, accountability, flexibility, empowerment] etc. But, instead of focusing on those, the focus shifts to the structure. If in solving for the subset it is found that structure is at fault, by all means give it a go. That is not how I've seen it done, though. Rather, people /assume/ flat is better with no mindfully explicit reasons why they would adopt it.

mempko 11y ago

Flat doesn't work because people from childhood on have been taught to listen to teacher, listen to boss, listen to parent. Is it any wonder people don't know how to work together independently of authority figures? I think some civic training would be good for people working in flat organizations. They need to be un-educated.

nickff 11y ago
>"I think some civic training would be good for people working in flat organizations. They need to be un-educated." Do you mean 'de-educated' or 're-educated'? There are plenty of uneducated people. You asssert that flat organizations could do well, but without any examples or evidence to back you up, I am inclined to disagree. If flat organizations were better, I would expect that some out of the hundreds of thousands (if not more) companies in the developed world would use that system.
- mempko 11y ago
  Slavery lasted over thousand years as an economic system. Feudalism lasted just as long. Your argument back then would have been "if capitalist firms were better, I would expect some. People in the feudalist world would use that system". As a matter of fact, there are thousands or such flat firms. Just as during feudalism there were thousands of capitalist firms that would fail. Failure is does not mean it won't work in 10, 50 or 100 years. There will be a time when we think of managers the same way we think of kings now.
  - nickff 11y ago
    It's possible that flat organizations are the future, but it is not true that all organizations were lord-serf in feudal times or that slave labor was the only sort of labor in its time (, in fact slavery still exists). Please show some examples of flat firms, which are not the highly centralized sort described in the OP, I am interested in reading about them. As far as I have seen, all so-called flat organizations are actually very centralized for all important decisions.

discardorama 11y ago

I think there be trouble on both ends of the spectrum: too flat, and too hierarchical. I think there's a sweet spot in the middle: my gut-feeling is about log_10 (N) + 1 layers, where N = number of employees.

dreamfactory2 11y ago

It sounds like the problem isn't flatness so much as a complete absence of mission and direction. Any team needs a mission to organise itself around solving

paulajohnson 11y ago

Whenever this comes up in management theory I'm always reminded of this article. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm The setting is radical feminism rather than tech management, but the drivers are the same and so are the results.

highCs 11y ago

Flat structure is possible, Valve Software has 0 managers: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...

xj9 11y ago

Flat will only kill you if you do a half-assed job of it. Functional flat organizations require motivated members. If you have a goal that everyone can agree on, and you trust those people to stay on target, you don't need structure. The unfortunate truth is that traditional businesses will never be able to motivate their employees enough to make this work at any kind of scale. You have no reason to care that much, especially not long term. Personally, I think workers-coops are the answer. But that remains to be seen.