It's funny because I've always felt this is something the military gets right. (At least the Marines do.) The military understands quite well that most tasks c

It's funny because I've always felt this is something the military gets right. (At least the Marines do.) The military understands quite well that most tasks cannot be planned or managed at all. It is never a matter of giving people scripts and having them execute scripts. The world is chaotic and unpredictable. It's also very hard for any one person to get anything done. Most work requires a team which introduces even more chaos, failure modes and unknown variables. Therefore the military introduces the concept of 'command'. Commanders are not there to micro-manage anybody. Good commanders understand quite quickly that they cannot control everything. Commanders are there to work with the chaos. Once you accept the concept of command the next step is the basic understanding that there are some people who are good commanders and others who are not just bad at it but they may actively dislike it. The commanders may indeed thrive off a certain amount of chaos and structurelessness may despise being "micro-managed." Give them a big goal, the necessary resources, and set them off. As long as feedback mechanisms are in place they'll get there. The specialists want routine and stability. They want to be part of a team where roles and responsibilities are clearly laid out. They want to be able to focus and specialize on a single problem and excel in a particular domain. BTW, this division, like most binaries, is not written in stone. Excellent results can be achieved by rotating commands over time. Specialists who claim to dislike command should sometimes be given command responsibilities simply to edge them out of their comfort zone and broaden their perspective. Sometimes commanders need to get to their hands dirty to grain a deeper tactical perspective. Avoiding a rigid hierarchy and command structure is how good organizations scale and adapt. The problem with the completely flat model is that it may serve commanders very well (who again, can thrive off chaos) but specialists will experience a lot anxiety and frustration.