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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

by 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.

by LukaAl 11y ago

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.