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No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?

• dpeck 7y ago
  Easy, you simply make the decisions within the confines of the shadow hierarchy that exists within all flat organizations.
  • marcinzm 7y ago
    And in a company someone has the power to fire or promote you so there is explicit power in play. You can try to distribute it but people are social and clever so they’ll work around any blockers.
  • andrelaszlo 7y ago
    I agree with your point but in the end the article was more about efficient decision making in engineering teams and less about flat organizations. Up-voted both the article and your comment :) Reminds me about the stuff I've read about Valve. In theory, and maybe if you have strong healthy de facto leadership it could work. In practice it seems more like an excuse to dodge responsibility, leading to pretty toxic places to work - but maybe there's another side to it. https://twitter.com/PastelChum/status/1136470238265040896 https://twitter.com/PastelChum/status/1136470238265040896
    • papln 7y ago
      This is a common criticism of Valve's model, and it's fair to say that Valve's model isn't clearly obviously better, but those attack's on Valve don't make the case that the traditional hierarchical model, with its own well-known problems, is better.
      • marcinzm 7y ago
        >This is a common criticism of Valve's model, and it's fair to say that Valve's model isn't clearly obviously better, but those attack's on Valve don't make the case that the traditional hierarchical model, with its own well-known problems, is better. I would say that the key difference is that in the traditional model I can learn about my potential bosses during the interview process. In the valve model I don't even know who my bosses will be during the interview process. As people like to say, interviews are a two way process.
        • narnianal 7y ago
          Also getting a shitty task might be a lot better than getting no task and then getting criticised for lack of ambition.
          • blotter_paper 7y ago
            If finding tasks is part of your job that might be a fair criticism.
      • EGreg 7y ago
        Do you have a good link about Valve’s model and are they a socialist / EMPLOYEE OWNED organization? Update: I read about it and no, they are basically anarcho syndicalist and overall owned by a enligtened/benevolent set of owners.
    • hinkley 7y ago
      Jeri Ellsworth after she pulled the ripcord: https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/
  • erikpukinskis 7y ago
    There are shadow power structures, but I don't think you are correct that they are necessarily hierarchical.
    • pault 7y ago
      Isn't hierarchy intrinsic to power?
      • kd0amg 7y ago
        What's the hierarchical ordering of Congress, SCOTUS, and the White House?
        • sidlls 7y ago
          There are very clear hierarchies in Congress (Speaker/Majority Leader, Majority Whip, Committee Chairs) and White House (President, Vice President, Cabinet). There is no power structure in SCOTUS: each of the justices is equal and has nobody to answer to. There are likely shadow organizations in the Congress and White House with their own (unpublished) hierarchy, but probably not in the SCOTUS due to its size and the implicit potency inherent in being a Justice.
          • papln 7y ago
            SCOTUS is a nearly-pure democracy. Every issue of substance is put to a vote, and everyone has freedom to act individually in anything not put to vote, along with ample funding for their desires (law clerks for work, and indivual pay for personal perks). (Namely, Q&A in session, and what they write in their opinions.) Their scope of power is sufficiently limited that favor-trading isn't very important. All that remains are the minor traditional formalities of when and where they meet and how they dress. When your group grows beyond 9 people, that gets harder.
            • pmyteh 7y ago
              The internal politics are still interesting, though. "The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court" by Woodward and Armstrong looked (amongst other things) at why Nixon's new Chief Justice Warren Burger seemed unable to push the court in a more consistently conservative direction despite more conservative membership. Part of the conclusion was that he just wasn't that great at playing the internal political games required to stay in control. Incidentally, the main source for that book was eventually revealed as one of the other Justices, Potter Stewart. It's a fascinating read.
  • ok_coo 7y ago
    In my professional experience, many fiefdoms get created in the shadow hierarchy of flat orgs. Align/get yourself in one that works and is healthy for your development and you can thrive. If not, then leave as quickly as you can. Just MHO.
  • organsnyder 7y ago
    In my experience, these shadow hierarchies exist in both flat and structured organizations. However, in structured organizations, there's the added challenge of figuring out how to navigate both the formal and shadow hierarchies simultaneously.
  • wayoutthere 7y ago
    Exactly! Business schools use a framework of formal power (job title, authority, etc) and informal power (influence and likability). The most effective organizations are the ones where the formal power structures are very close to informal ones. People know how to make decisions. Flat organizations end up being run by the loudest voices in the room. Ironically, flat organizations with largely informal power structures are often slower to make decisions because one person can become a huge bottleneck on decision making without realizing it. It can also be culturally corrosive: informal structures encourage Machiavellian behavior and the most Machiavellian people tend to rise to the top — which creates a terrible work environment for everyone else.
    • iguy 7y ago
      "The most effective organizations are the ones where the formal power structures are very close to informal ones " There's a nice parallel here to how parliamentary democracy arose. And conversely, there's no point having a chamber full of the people who you wish had power, if they don't have it.
      • wayoutthere 7y ago
        I think there’s a more HN-relevant one in the way that founder-controlled companies seem to be capable of more growth. There’s not as much backstabbing and jockeying for power because everyone knows who the top dog is. The founder isn’t going to step down unless things go really well (everyone gets rich) or really poorly (everyone gets laid off) so you can’t stab them in the back and take their role. Founders can make decisions with a single vision — design by committee doesn’t produce innovation. There tend to be problems when founders step back from the top of the formal power structure. Steve Jobs remains the best example I can think of; he wielded immense influence within Apple in the early 80s, but was ultimately a destructive presence once he no longer had formal power because he would go around his bosses to build his pet project (the original Macintosh) and created a corporate culture of distrust and deception. When he left, Apple fell apart culturally and really had no product vision until he rejoined a decade later and resumed the role of founder-CEO.
  • adrianmonk 7y ago
    A slightly radical theory: flat organizations are set up to foster that intentionally. Suppose your company has the idea that they want to identify and reward natural leaders and/or those who test limits and push through boundaries. One way to do it is to tell people your organization is flat, then watch for the people who don't buy that and instead see an opportunity to take charge. You create a situation with a little bit of an artificial and completely intentional power vacuum, then you watch who takes it upon themselves to step in and fill it. By holding a bit of a vacuum, you encourage these people to show themselves. (And I'm convinced management is actively watching to see who takes that bait.) I'd say these are the most common responses: (1) never reach awareness that it's happening and continue to take flat at face value, (2) see it as opportunity and take advantage of it, and (3) see it as unnecessary game-playing and dislike it. Whether 2 or 3 is better is an interesting question. It might separate the practical people from the idealists, or maybe it separates the self-interested from the more community-minded. I can see some of both, personally. EDIT: I don't necessarily want to be completely dismissive of the idea. There's something to be said for creating situations that allow for people to stretch and try out new roles. That's how people develop. This is informal and stealthy, but it is a way to do that.
    • blotter_paper 7y ago
      I like your cynical take, but I'm not convinced it's actually the goal of management in all cases. I could see it drifting in that direction over time regardless. That said, some founders are actually idealists. I frequently discuss this topic with people who are aware of the invisible hierarchy problem and are interested in potential solutions. I think there are well-meaning attempts at this, even if they don't work perfectly.
      • veddox 7y ago
        > the invisible hierarchy problem I'm not in favour of flat systems for exactly this reason. I think they try to solve the problem of bad leadership structurally, by simply pretending to abolish leadership. IMO, it would better be addressed personally - e.g. by investing in leadership training or vetting candidates for leadership roles more thoroughly.
• notabee 7y ago
  The article very much needs a link to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
• pinkfoot 7y ago
  Find out who can approve an invoice for payment. He's the boss.
  • stevenpetryk 7y ago
    It takes really little effort to use "they" instead of "he" to include all people.
    • pinkfoot 7y ago
      Sad.
    • fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      They the boss.
      • moate 7y ago
        *They's the boss. Fixt for ya.
    • syntaxing 7y ago
      Serious question, I was taught in High School that he is grammatically correct as a gender neutral pronoun where the gender is unknown[0]. Is this not the case anymore? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-person_pronoun#Generic_he https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-person_pronoun#Generic_h...
      • lucb1e 7y ago
        I've heard that too (though not as part of any official education), but I'm not sure I really like it. As far as I know, men have always had the upper hand in the part of history that shaped most of our current society. When prompted about it, it's easy to go "oh no, I didn't mean it has to be a man, I meant it generally", while the word still obviously refers to a male. It almost certainly reinforces an expectation of male leadership. I sometimes use the 'wrong' gender on purpose ("she" when talking about male-dominated professions and vice versa), just to make the reader realize that's an option, hopefully getting used to the idea and not frowning when they hear of an actual case where an uncommonly gendered person is (studying for / a candidate for) $profession/$role.
• SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I would like to refer to the following - The Tyranny of Structurelessness, originally meant to address the concerns regarding 'flat' organizations. "This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others... ...Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the women's movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not). As long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules. Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware." https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
  • dosy 7y ago
    It's not just the women's movement, any postmodern "leaderphobic" group of anti-heroes will operate under this adhocratic masking of power. It's still power, but it's the power-pill that palatable to their sensibilities, suitably masked. Marxist revolutions "of the peasants" pioneered this mass delusion of flattening. But isn't this just gaslighting people? I mean "flat" is just disempowering existing power structures, to empower a secretive cabal, that pretends to rule "benevolently" by consensus by usurping the existing "oppressive evil" but ends up just becoming worse. Prove you can actually be better, then come back and tell me how to. This article should have been called: "Afraid of Kings. How we tried and failed to get s*it done when we need to pander to everyone's leaderphobia." Bottom line is, this is not new hat. It's old hat. What I'd say to the author is: It's an adhorcracy. Read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Then come back and tell me how to.
    • tehjoker 7y ago
      For what it's worth, most Marxists favor some form of democracy. The libertarian wing favors direct democracy while other tendencies favor different forms of representative democracy. Democracy is favored for exactly the reason that unclear power structures are a kind of oppression and that democracies broadly speaking offer decision making power to the people. A big difference between a Marxist and a liberal is in the analysis of the economic base of power which can either support or undermine democratic structures.
• kirubakaran 7y ago
  To bastardize Greenspun, any sufficiently large flat org contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of top-down org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule
  • narnianal 7y ago
    Regarding Greenspun I have to think about a colleague. He is a studied mathematician. So in the past 15 years he was working on a tool in Perl. Now he switched teams and is tasked to work on a Python problem. You don't hear about him for weeks besides he need to setup is development environment. Then he comes back and starts to code. It seems like he doesn't need to spend any time learning Python. You look into his code and also have no idea what's happening or why it's working. What he basically did was implement his own programming language out of lists, dicts (hashtables), and functions, with class hierarchies, type checking, inheritance, etc. And the time he spent "setting up his system" was the time he needed to basically code his VM engine in Python instead of Perl, and then adapting his standard library files to the quirks of the underlying interpreter. It was weird for me at first, but actually makes sense if you look at it mathematically. A math lover starts with defining zero, one and plus, right? So this is the only logical way to program for him. He doesn't even know what a VM or standard library is.
    • mikeklaas 7y ago
      That's horrifying.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
• claudiulodro 7y ago
  Assuming whatever you're trying to do is a good idea, my method is to just write a "heads-up"-type message and just go for it. For example, "I'm going to do foo. If anyone has any concerns or anything, please let me know". This covers your ass, provides a discussion/feedback area, and lets you actually get things done without a lengthy bike-shedding process. One important lesson I have learned in my career is that fortune favors the bold.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • kradroy 7y ago
    We used to have an engineer who used this maneuver. He abused it because it was effective. We do have an issue on our team with engineers being indifferent to new ideas, and our manager loves consensus. Regardless, this engineer thought his ideas were always "good ideas." They weren't. He was eventually chewed out by our manager because he was becoming a passive-aggressive tyrant. He left the company soon after that. Nevertheless it goes to show that fortune does favor the bold, but that fortune might be at another company.
    • DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
      I second the your conclusion and GP's. "Flat" / "self-organizing" / etc. teams seam prone to different, not fewer, pathologies than teams with explicit hierarchies. I suspect that the two approaches are vulnerable to different, but specific, mixes of personalities.
    • roland35 7y ago
      The challenge, as with many things in life, is to strike a good balance. In this case between being bold and being a good team player at the same time. What I have tried to do in the past is: 1) Take an idea out to a "proof of concept" stage, whether that is a white paper or an actual functioning demo but no further. People often need to see something, not just hear it. 2) Have a cosponsor or two to work with you. At first you may think that you are not getting full credit for your idea but I believe it shows more leadership than just striking out on your own. Plus you don't want your team to despise you like that aforementioned engineer. 3) Be humble, solicit feedback, and really listen to it!
• pjc50 7y ago
  While I'm very much in favour of reminding everyone of Tyranny of Structurelessness and shadow hierarchies, the article is referring to a more IETF-like situation of voluntary collaboration. Here there are other sorts of shadow hierachy: - Postel decentralisation: it used to be the case that a lot of important internet functionality was run through one person. Less so these days, but there will still be critical individuals. - Fait accompli. This is really apparent in browsers, where the W3C inevitably lags actual practice and features tend to be introduced by deploying first and standardising later.
  • tialaramex 7y ago
    The article makes an early mistake in describing the IETF as "membership based". Nope. You cannot join or leave the IETF, it has no members, everybody who is interested can and should participate. It likewise confuses itself by insisting on calling the hum a "vote" even though it acknowledges that humming mustn't be used to try to enumerate support which is exactly the point of voting. The IETF process works because of _what it's for_ and could not usefully be replicated in contentious political environments. Rough consensus and running code builds SMTP but it doesn't end the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Because the IETF deliberately has no actual power, in the end the worst that can happen is you didn't agree anything and have to roll your own. You are "at" the IETF (many people never attend a physical meeting, and that's fine) to reach an agreement, and if you can't agree then too bad but it cannot stop you pressing on anyway. This part of the model also worked for CA/B. CA/B initially exists as a meeting between two groups that both want something, the Certificate Authorities want a sales promotion tool and the Browser Vendors want better validation. But the CA/B meeting lived on long after that discussion bore fruit, because it turns out that _agreeing_ among yourselves is much better for everybody than if you all just do whatever you want and hope it works out.
• dhruvrrp 7y ago
  Rough consensus is a really naive solution to making decisions. Being in a flat structure doesn't change the fact that different people have different requirements. Just because you have more people "agreeing" to one particular idea doesn't make it the right idea.
  • Drdrdrq 7y ago
    Did you read the article? The whole point is not to seek agreement, but a few proponents (authors) and no fundamental flaws.
  • kradroy 7y ago
    Decision making is fraught with lack of knowledge and uncertainty. I favor rough consensus. Face it - you're never going to get the best or "right" solution in most cases or practically ever. It's good enough to get something that most people involved think will work. I emphasize "involved" because there are always individuals who don't really care about the decision at inception. They sometimes complain if the idea doesn't work out, but then you can point back to the discussion and tell them they had a time and place to give their input. I feel exercise of decision making is mostly about having stakeholders be aware that a topic is being discussed and making a space for open discussion. The outcome of the decision is largely irrelevant.
  • rocqua 7y ago
    As per the article. Rough consensus means everyone states "I can live with this solution". This is contrasted against the majority stating "I have no objections against this solution". The idea is to not get bogged down in 'I think this is fine but X is better' discussions, and only deal with 'I think this is actually bad' discussions. Because any discussion is very long, and the first kind of objection is not severe enough to warrant a lot of discussion. See also the concept of 'bikeshed-ing'
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• taeric 7y ago
  My hope is that you can begin by dropping concerns over efficiency. For that matter, an slight inverse of the headline is way more important, to my mind. Avoid slowly making bad decisions. An easy way to help there, is to not turn every decision into a debate.
• nestorherre 7y ago
  Offtopic: browsing the doist blog for the first time, plenty of valuable articles about productivity in there.
• bigred100 7y ago
  I’ve only had about two years of software experience, but my (junior) opinion is that I’d prepare to spend even more of my brainpower on political cagematch fights than usual, as non-hierarchical means my “equals” are going to start trying to intercept credit, take lead on things, etc. and position themselves as de facto managers without me being able to tell them “fuck off, you’re not my manager.”
  • sidlls 7y ago
    This happens in organizations that aren't flat. They're dysfunctional, but they aren't flat.
  • papln 7y ago
    It is said, "Success has many parents. Failure is an orphan." Before you get into cage matches, engage with your colleagues respectfully and maturely, politely declining suggestions you disagree with, before rushing to cuss them out.
  • Bahamut 7y ago
    This can be headed off by not rewarding bad behavior in peer reviews/manager reviews. In addition, such behavior could be used to lay off the offending person. Not that I'm a fan of completely flat organizations. It should be noted that the right way to be productive in a flattish organization is to influence people - this is no different in a big company from a small company.
• kristianc 7y ago
  > At Doist we believe that open and sincere communication improves our decision-making process. That’s why we’ve built a culture that encourages feedback at all levels of decision-making Who is 'we' and doesn't that get to the nub of the problem? It's highly unlikely that they held a group conference and decided what 'we at Doist' believe. That 'we' actually refers to a small subset of leaders who decide, and it is 'flatness' and stagnation for the rest.
• raedah 7y ago
  The Decred open source project approves spending on proposals based on stake holder vote, 60% yes for approval. https://dcrdata.decred.org https://dcrdata.decred.org shows $17m in the treasury currently. Votes are the final say. Current and past votes are viewable on https://proposals.decred.org https://proposals.decred.org . Its all open source, docs https://docs.decred.org/governance/politeia/overview/ https://docs.decred.org/governance/politeia/overview/ code https://github.com/decred/politeia/ https://github.com/decred/politeia/ voting charts https://alpha.dcrdata.org/proposals https://alpha.dcrdata.org/proposals
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• howard941 7y ago
  A few related Zappos discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10964404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10964404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239471
• noisy_boy 7y ago
  In my experience, hierarchy (explicit/implicit) is necessary to conclude differences which are grey. In fact, there are cases where I have seen one side make their points logically enough that they are basically black & white and the other side sticking their guns saying "good points, but I think I would prefer to go ...". One might rightfully say the issue is deeper but we don't always have the luxury of choosing the most well fitting team. Somebody with the authority (granted/earned) has to step in and say "I have heard all sides and this is what we are going to do". Saves endless bickering over never ending e-mail chains.
• crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Our hackerspace runs in a "flat manner". In reality, there are people that are, in a Animal Farm sense, "more equal" than others. It also means there's very little responsibility for our shared space, little responsibility for operations, other than what individuals take on. It also means that avenues that we could do (work more with First Robotics, or review if what we're doing is the best for our mission) is shouted down by said "more equal" members. Sadfully, to that end, changes that I believe would be better can't even be discussed. I've quit doing so, and just pay my dues and have my 3d printer there (bed size is 500mm x 500mm x 400mm) along with 3dp equipment. Admittedly, its a sad way for me to "interact", but I'm not one of the 'in' people... I'd much prefer if we actually had some hierarchy. We don't need to have every position delineated, but a basic framework makes a ton of things clear. Right now, I can't even figure out who knows how to make a static IP in the hackerspace's dhcp table. Someone knows.
  • icebraining 7y ago
    Would it work better if those "more equal" members were explicitly above the rest of you?
    • crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      Thats the rub: I don't think the rest of the org would go for that. If it was in a clear hierarchical vote, they wouldn't be the primary decision naysayers. But because of the shadow hierarchy, they can continue with their actions. And those actions are primarily shooting ideas down or making some decisions for the whole org implicitly.
    • maxxxxx 7y ago
      With a clear hierarchy you also have more accountability. In my company (which isn't flat but like everywhere else there is a shadow hierarchy) we have a few people who have the ear of upper management and influence decisions but are never held responsible for bad decisions they influenced. Sometimes it's really infuriating to be blamed for doing stuff you thought was a bad idea while the people who wanted it that way get no blame but can put their name on successful projects.
• kbuchanan 7y ago
  The article touts transparency as being the virtue that led them to a flat organization. I'd argue that _it's within an explicit hierarchy where transparency (e.g. who makes decision, who earns more, who gets promoted) actually flourishes_ with the lowest cost. As other commenters have pointed out, a hierarchy will emerge regardless, however, transparency will be subdued beneath secret cabals and handshakes.
• dlphn___xyz 7y ago
  there is some form of hierarchy even in flat orgs. best bet is to get buy in from the seniors
• twoquestions 7y ago
  It seems there's an ideology here (in the Gary Bernhardt sense: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/ideology https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/ideology), that flat organizations are impossible. Not just bad or inefficient, but literally cannot possibly happen, that it will always and forever immediately decay into a shadow oligarchy (which to be fair can happen). Is it really that hard to take these people at their word, along with other companies without a stated strict and rigid hierarchy? Little wonder such organizations are hard to build, especially in a culture that holds the very notion in contempt.
• westurner 7y ago
  Group decision-making > Formal systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_decision-making#Formal_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_decision-making#Formal_s... > Consensus decision-making, Voting-based methods, Delphi method, Dotmocracy Consensus decision-making: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making There's a field that some people are all calling "Collaboration Engineering". I learned about this from a university course in Collaboration. 6 Patterns of Collaboration [GRCOEB] — Generate, Reduce, Clarify, Organize, Evaluate, Build Consensus 7 Layers of Collaboration [GPrAPTeToS] — Goals, Products, Activities, Patterns of Collaboration, Techniques, Tools, Scripts The group decision making processes described in the article may already be defined with the thinkLets design pattern language. A person could argue against humming for various unspecified reasons. I'll just CC this here from my notes, which everyone can read here [1]: “Collaboration Engineering: Foundations and Opportunities” de Vreede (2009) http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol10/iss3/7/ http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol10/iss3/7/ “A Seven-Layer Model of Collaboration: Separation of Concerns for Designers of Collaboration Systems” Briggs (2009) http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2009/26/ http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2009/26/ Six Patterns of Collaboration “Defining Key Concepts for Collaboration Engineering” Briggs (2006) http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2006/17/ http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2006/17/ “ThinkLets: Achieving Predictable, Repeatable Patterns of Group Interaction with Group Support Systems (GSS)” http://www.academia.edu/259943/ThinkLets_Achieving_Predictable_Repeatable_Patterns_of_Group_Interaction_With_Group_Support_Systems_GSS_ http://www.academia.edu/259943/ThinkLets_Achieving_Predictab... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=thinklets https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=thinklets [1] https://wrdrd.github.io/docs/consulting/team-building#collaboration-engineering https://wrdrd.github.io/docs/consulting/team-building#collab...
• achenatx 7y ago
  The problem with explicit leadership positions is that people have no downward mobility. If you are bad, then the organization loses a great resource. I like the model of dept head in academia. Professors really want to be doing research, but they also need a dept head who handles administration. No one really wants to do it, so it rotates through the department. There are some perks like a pay bump, reduced teaching, extra grad assistants (or whatever). Many more people get a chance to try out a leadership role to grow, but it is expected to be temporary so people can go back to being technical with no repercussions. Individual contributors get better perspective on management. People that are good at it and have an affinity for it stay in the role longer. Self organizing teams still have a leader, but the team selects the leader.
  • veddox 7y ago
    That's why democracies have terms of office, and that's exactly what we do in our student organisation. You're right: there has to be a way to get somebody out of a misfitting leadership role without completely humiliating him. Regular elections are a great way of doing so, and giving many different people the chance to lead benefits both them and the organisation.
    • aeternus 7y ago
      One method I've found to work well, especially with engineers: Make it clear to the team that the new leader is stepping up temporarily to fill a significant business need. That the engineer is doing the team a favor by doing this and that the plan is for it to be temporary because that engineer is a great IC. It then becomes very easy for the new leader to go back to being an IC. They can even be thanked for stepping up to help the company during a critical time. They can also easily do it again in the future. If the person is a great lead and gains the team's respect, then simply make it permanent.
      • taneq 7y ago
        That last bit makes the rest look like a rather transparent attempt to mask a trial period.
• Drdrdrq 7y ago
  Interesting that most comments deal with why flat structure doesn't work. Newsflash: of course there is always a boss. Someone needs to sign the paycheck after all. But the term "flat structure" usually refers to lack of middle management. And yes, that can work, and much better than traditional hierarchical organization. But it takes a great leader and capable employees to achieve that. I am lucky to work at such place and it rocks. As for reaching consensus, I think the idea is great. Instead of seeking consensus try to find a few proponents and make sure nobody sees fundamental flaws... I think this is a perfect tradeoff between doing the right thing and moving fast.
  • blueboo 7y ago
    Indeed, like any management strategy, it can be done poorly, inadvertently incentivizing people to form shadow organizations, or it can be done well, encouraging people to engage in good faith and reaping the promised benefits. In practice, we get lumpy mix of good and bad implementations within organizations. It takes a lot, however, to overcome the near-term, personal-empire-building incentive. "This way is better for everyone" isn't going to cut it for a significant proportion of folks. If you bake it into the bones of your recruitment process and in your management training, there's a chance it'll be an authentic value of the org. And even then it's hard to shake the suspicion that this strategy only further rewards showhorses and marginalizes in-the-trenches doing-thankless-work types. If you get an extraordinary manager, she can mitigate that, but your culture isn't robust if it relies on the extraordinary.
• he0001 7y ago
  An organization can only be flat if you can’t be fired by someone else or you can fire anyone else. As long someone can do that there’s always that inequality.
• jedberg 7y ago
  I'm still looking for someone who works at Valve who can tell me the nuts and bolts logistics of how things actually work there. If there are no bosses, how are decisions made? How are raises actually determined? They publish their handbook but the logistical details aren't in there.
  • duskwuff 7y ago
    There was a recent HN thread about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20099261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20099261 In short: power is held by insiders. It's really not all that different from a traditional hierarchical company, except without any job titles to tell newcomers who holds the power, and without the ability to hold managers responsible for the performance of their reports.
  • Jerry2 7y ago
    This is the best description of how Valve's "flat" structure works in practice: >Some of Geldreich's comments are similar to comments Ellsworth made after being let go by Valve. "...There is actually a hidden layer of powerful management structure in the company and it felt a lot like high school," Ellsworth said in 2013. "There are popular kids that have acquired power in the company, then there's the trouble makers, and everyone in between." >Geldreich similarly describes 'barons' who are in with the executive arm of the company in question, and a culture in which employees must curry favor with influential 'sponsors' to enjoy stability. >At self-organizing firms you might be placed into a huge open office and given massive monitors. This is to normalize all communications and for more effective surveillance. Everything will be monitored either directly by a corporate arm employee, one of their barons or friends.July 16, 2018 Rest: https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless-industry-politics/ https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless...
• meerita 7y ago
  Design by consensus, the worst thing ever. A Volvo is a Porsche designed by commitee.
• kitsune_ 7y ago
  Sounds a lot like consent (not consensus) as practiced in Sociocracy or Holacracy. https://patterns.sociocracy30.org/consent-decision-making.html https://patterns.sociocracy30.org/consent-decision-making.ht...
  • Matticus_Rex 7y ago
    There's a distinction between the Sociocracy consent process and Holacracy's process with objection validity, but yeah on the continuum of similar processes I'd put chaos consensus (which is what a lot of people who attack self-management/flat are actually critiquing) at one end and Holacracy on the other, with this and Sociocracy about 3/4 toward the Holacracy end.
• joshiefishbein 7y ago
  I currently work within a profit-share-based flat-org. We have a rule to never exceed 12 people in company size. Sure there might be several of us that are "core" members and others that come and go throughout the years. So in a sense this seniority has translated to hierarchy to some degree. We're all mostly web developers so the mind-share is important since our technologies move fast. Decision making doesn't cost us a lot of time because there aren't many big decisions to make. Our only producer and founder see client faces the most, but not exclusively. We do good work and rely solely on previous clients and referrals banging our doors down for more work – so we fortunately don't have to worry on that front or "crown someone" with biz dev because it's on autopilot for the most part (definitely over-simplifying the work it takes to get a client in the door but you get the picture). One would assume that our profits would cap out eventually because we aren't scaling the labor-force, but we just keep getting better paying projects and have a few internal projects that provide some passive revenue – so we've been able to nearly double our revenue year-over-year for the last few years and is now stably seven figures. Our big decisions come down to whether or not to hire a specialized dev for an upcoming scope or maybe what conference we attend that year. These decisions don't happen often but they happen openly and almost everyone is satisfied with the result almost all of the time. "Almost" is used unapologetically because we all know there's never been a perfect organization and that keeps everyone involved perfectly happy. We can't always be skipping around in the cotton candy fields and enjoying the sugar rain like the unicorns we truly are on the inside – so when we have to go to work we recognize that our pattern is better than the vast majority of agency-models here in NYC and are still delighted by our cumulative work experience day to day. Flat-org is sometimes tossed around as if it projects itself as a silver bullet to organizational overhead. But anyone that cares to think clearly for a moment can recognize that any org structure has a place and time and that there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution to managing people.
  • maxxxxx 7y ago
    That seems a like a great place to work.
    • joshiefishbein 7y ago
• edmundhuber 7y ago
  Are there examples of flat organizations that have to meet make-or-break deadlines? I'm a little skeptical of a flat org's ability to hold itself accountable to externally-imposed deadlines/requirements/etc.
• idlewords 7y ago
  Decisions in a flat organization are made by the informal hierarchy that you have to discover through trial and error. Be careful not to antagonize anyone important while you do it!
  • tlb 7y ago
    It sounds like fun when you describe it that way! It's more complicated than a hierarchy. Informal power isn't transitive, so you can have arbitrary directed graphs with loops. It'd be an interesting experiment to build a tech startup with an overt hierarchy, where decisions were made by the person in the room with the most stripes on their shoulders. The conventional wisdom is that it would suck and you couldn't hire smart people, but sometimes the big wins are to be found in such places.
• jatsign 7y ago
  "A chair who asks, “Is everyone OK with choice A?” is going to get objections. But a chair who asks, “Can anyone not live with choice A?” is more likely to only hear from folks who think that choice A is impossible to engineer given some constraints." It's funny - I've adopted a similar approach towards getting my kids to agree on something with each other. Instead of asking, "Should we do A or B or C?", and having one want A and the other dead-set on B, I ask which one do they definitely NOT want to do. Works pretty well for kids under 10...
  • elamje 7y ago
    There was a good podcast with a famous FBI negotiator, Chris Voss, who recommends if you want to sway someone, frame it as, "are you opposed to doing X?" rather than "should we do X?". People are more likely to agree with the former.
    • lucb1e 7y ago
      Would that still work after having worked in such an organisation for years, if the question is always phrased that way, or is it just an uncommon way of phrasing that works only so long as people are not yet thoroughly used to it?
      • kthejoker2 7y ago
        Getting a shared mindset on what's at stake with a decision, regardless of the outcome, is the critical point. This is a great way to understand if anything at all is at stake.
  • neumann 7y ago
    And for kids under two, you give two options and place the one you prefer second and emphasize it. Most of the kids agree. And then disagree. and then agree. and then disagree. and then you distract them with a snack and they happily go with whichever!
• nvarsj 7y ago
  The comments here have completely derailed. Remove "flat organization" from the post title, and the article is still valid. It's talking about consensus making which applies to any org structure.
• grawprog 7y ago
  My work's been effectively operating as a flat organization for the last several months as our manager's been away on leave. It works for the most part as we all have our own jobs we do and all know what we should be doing. Until it doesn't work. There's no accountability with the schedule and a big communication problem between everybody. When things change, nobody really knows whats going on, when mistakes are made everybody's quick to point finger and problems take longer to solve. You really notice the lack of a manager when they're gone. All these little things that used to be taken care of now fall onto whoever happens to be around to deal with it and it's definitely been causing problems we never used to have before.
• cuntsAtAllTimes 7y ago
  On hacker news, you just stamp out anything of middling deviance.
• fuggles 7y ago
  Have been thinking about this a lot lately. Not just decision making, but how to actually function in a healthy way in the day-to-day, in a flat org. The place I work recently restructured from a more traditional hierarchical structure to SAFe - so the business has a well defined hierarchy, while engineering teams are completely flat. Almost 4 PI's on (~9 months) the promise of "self organizing teams" has not been realized. We have a lot of communication problems, especially technical cross team communication. The development process wants to move much faster than the information actually flows, and if the information does actually flow what is communicated is wrong/incomplete. So what ends up happening often is that teams choose to operate in their own bubble. Another issue is having common direction across all teams, while also allowing teams to operate autonomously. That common direction is missing so you end up with work from one team being very different from work by another team, and in a system that integrates a lot of different components it is awkward to navigate and work in. The above, among other things, brings out "2nd order effects", like strained inter-team relations, to put it lightly (so there is an additional policing aspect to contend with there as well). We have a System Architecture group (as defined by SAFe) but their time seems to be consumed by meetings and managing information flow and coordination across teams. There is also a "shadow hierarchy" (as others have mentioned thus far on this thread) that has emerged, and that helps a little, but it's really a poor solution. Curious on anyone else's thoughts/experience here.
  • lucb1e 7y ago
    You're using some lingo I never saw before, what's a SAFe and a PI?
    • dragonwriter 7y ago
      SAFe is the Scaled Agile Framework. https://www.scaledagileframework.com/ https://www.scaledagileframework.com/
    • mongol 7y ago
      PI is program increment, a SAFe term
• mdpopescu 7y ago
  Use money. People tend to pay more for things / services they prefer than for those they dislike.
• Joeri 7y ago
  A good resource to learn more about scaling flat self-organizing organizations is the book Reinventing Organizations. It's a curious mix of dreamy hippie philosophy interspersed with very practical examples of flat orgs and how they remain flat while still getting things done.
  • Matticus_Rex 7y ago
    +1, I love RO. The Holacracy book is also a great read for an implementation of what a built-out Teal (though not quite flat) system can look like (and how it responds to objections like the ones seen in a lot of these comments). Of course, you have to unlearn all the stuff you learned about Holacracy from bad business mag articles....
• samirillian 7y ago
  Great article! But humming does bear a striking resemblance to voting by acclamation.
• maxxxxx 7y ago
  Whenever I hear about flat organizations the old quote comes to mind: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". It seems to me that all these orgs are a few people at the top that have a say and everybody else needs to survive through a lot of political skill.
• pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
  Define "Good" to be any Decision made by you.
• trustfundbaby 7y ago
  I find that places that harp on their "flat" organization tend to be places where the people in charge are just trying to defer the hard work of putting structure in place or just afraid of it for whatever reason. In my experience flat organizations just try to keep everyone happy by making them think they have decisive input on things that they honestly shouldn't, past a certain point. I find (completely anecdotally of course) that they don't scale, and I think what the writer (who ironically is a lead engineer at this supposedly flat organisation) is running into are the limitations of this flatness once it gets to a certain point ... I bet the next post will be something along the lines of "Managers: a necessary evil"
• davesque 7y ago
  It just seems too fashionable to talk about flat organizations nowadays. And, as many have pointed out, it's a bit ironic since organizations that claim to be flat tend not to be in practice. It's obnoxious when people claim that things are one way when, in fact, they are another. It seems people have developed some kind of allergy to leader figures. In the US, this probably has a lot to do with the political situation. The current president is non other than the antithesis of a good leader --- and he's "on top", if not literally, then figuratively. Elsewhere, it's probably just cyclical. We're at the bottom of a leadership trough in history. However, I can't count the number of times I've wished for a good leader lately. Call me mentally lazy or a conformist, but I want someone to give me a sense of direction and purpose. I want someone I feel like I can relate to and trust. Maybe I'm just the type that gets a lot out of mentoring relationships. I guess it's just one of those things where you need to be the change you want to see in the world, eh?
• hinkley 7y ago
  I'm sure you've all worked some place that talked about 'meritocracy'. I'm sure most of you have worked some place where every time a promotion happens, people joke about "I thought you were already a <new job title>". Years ago someone put me onto this phenomenon. Some people in a business have no trouble making decisions and others are hesitant for a myriad of reasons, from self doubt to not wanting to be responsible for the consequences, to just not liking being randomized. These people will line up behind folks who seem confident, and as this manager half-joked, all he really had to do was 'show up' and start making decisions and people would follow him. The best description I've ever heard of this phenomenon, and describes my own experience, is that people are looking for and will line up behind someone they can trust. If you sound confident they will give you the benefit of the doubt. But if things go wrong and you don't jump on the problem, they get burned and they won't listen to you as much in the future, even if you are ostensibly in charge. Strong opinions loosely held, own your mistakes, be good at troubleshooting, talk to other teams (even knowing things an hour before everybody else makes you look a hell of a lot smarter), and people will defer to you even without a title. Because even if the boat goes down they know you'll go down with it instead of running away. People will take your advice, rank be damned. That said, there are darker patterns here too, that could easily dominate in a 'flat' organization. Hoarding knowledge forces people to defer to you. There are obvious flavors of this that I don't need to explain, but here's one I see all the time but others miss: modelling systems to exactly reflect your mental processes (instead of a simplified version, see Brian Kernighan on debugging) means nobody else can work on it except for trivial things. This makes people feel stupid, and imposter syndrome stops them from fighting back. As one of my bosses said, you should fire all of the 'indispensable' people because they are holding up progress. An earlier boss started a new project and wouldn't let a bunch of us work on it because we were 'too important' to the old project. I think maybe 2 of us figured out this was a trap and worked to hand off our stuff.
• iamleppert 7y ago
  I wouldn’t be taking any advice from IETF, it’s one of the slowest moving organizations I’ve ever seen.
• User23 7y ago
  I find the Roman concepts of auctoritas, dignitas, and potestas to be quite helpful for understanding how allegedly flat organizations self organize. Please note that I’m not saying they apply directly, they don’t, but it helps to understand social status is multidimensional.
• crazy_monkey 7y ago
  Give half the people guns and half the people knives. Now you have hierarchy. Repeat til convergence.
• sopooneo 7y ago
  Answer: you get lucky by having a great flat organization. Great people and great cohesion. Structure is a pricey insurance premium. You best case will never be as good, but neither will your worst be as bad.
• zby 7y ago
  And nobody mentioned prediction markets yet?
• RocketSyntax 7y ago
  Get data from outside the organization and let that guide you.
• asdfman123 7y ago
  There should be someone designated to gather rough consensus and act upon it. Someone who leads the group. Perhaps they could be called a "leader"?
  • the-pigeon 7y ago
    Yeah. I've never seen "flat leadership" work. Someone always becomes the leader just without the title. Personally, I strongly prefer formalized structures over informal ones because then everyone is on the same page and the right person can be chosen to lead instead of it just being the one with the loudest voice.
    • ellius 7y ago
      People not being on the same page is a massive problem. It especially constrains the leader herself, because she can't make any strong, clear decisions without second-guessing whether she has the authority to do so.
  • hrktb 7y ago
    An issue with that approach is you end up with leaders forced to approve/champion proposals they don't have enough expertise to fully grasp. The 'designated' part is a blessing and a curse, I understand trying different systems with different failure modes.
• ivanhoe 7y ago
  There's one thing I've learned from white water rafting: On slow parts democracy works fine - everyone discussing about the best path - but when things start happening fast you need a single captain to make the calls, otherwise you end up hitting every single rock in the river while trying to agree if it's better to go left or right around it.
  • hrktb 7y ago
    As I read it, the point of the article is to explain how you deal with decisions when the "captain" can be anyone in a group, and not some designated hierarchical leader. It's not democracy per se: for instance a designer can come with a proposition to give people a chance to review it. In the rafting example they're basically saying "we go right", and will do so if nobody shouts "there's a cliff on the right".
  • clairity 7y ago
    a somewhat similar phenomenon happens in basketball. when the game is not competitive, no leader is needed and everyone just plays to their ability (and hopefully to their strengths). but when the game gets competitive, it's easy to fall apart and get beaten without a leader. on offense, that's usually the point guard (e.g., steph curry), who implicitly chooses who gets the ball, when they get it, and for how long. on defense, a forward/center (e.g., draymond green), who can see the whole floor in front of them, often has the responsibility of coordinating the defense to minimize gaps and mismatches.
  • discreteevent 7y ago
    That's a good point when in that situation. But it's worth remembering that in development people are rarely in that situation. For various reasons, however people (including me) often bring that kind of emergency thinking into development and it just shows things down. Rushing into the debugger instead of slowing down for a minute and thinking about it for a minute. Doing a little bit of design and thinking about what I want from the system instead of getting lost in the details of the existing implementation. Most of the time in development we need to slow down to go much faster. It's nothing like white water rafting (it would be cool though if it could be like rafting sometimes - everyone gets sick of having to slow down all the time at some point)
• whalesalad 7y ago
  You don't.
• robomartin 7y ago
  The answer is simple: Decide to leave the fantasy of flat organizations behind. Really. Flat organizations might work for a yet-to-be-discovered species. They do not work for humans. We can’t even have a picnic without leadership.
• sbhn 7y ago
  Why dont you just outsource decision making to the proof of work consensus protocol that is so effectively employed by the blockchain.
• gcb0 7y ago
  Consensus is the path, not the destination. Implemented it in a project such as: Start using the tech. If it explodes it's on you; if other people pick it up it was good; If nobody picks up and you get tired of fixing it, abandon.
• sunflowerdeath 7y ago
  I think in "flat" organizations, there must still be a responsible person, but he should convince people to do what is needed to achieve the goal, not force them.
  • JamesBarney 7y ago
    The problem is bikeshedding. You can burn through a lot of hours arguing about decisions that do not affect the end goal.
• leoc 7y ago
  Quoting my self from a comment on another article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19468090#19468699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19468090#19468699 : > AFAICT—and again, I'm just someone who read about this stuff in magazines as a child—this kind of management-theory/theory-of-the-firm study and experimentation really was much more prominent in the public eye twenty-five or more years ago, and has faded from popular awareness since; maybe because the work itself is less common, and less influential on institutions, nowadays too. I think that's a pity, because it seems relevant to some supposedly-new things you see generating excitement nowadays, especially in the vicinity of the tech industry. For example the whole Valve structureless-or-notionally-structureless-organisation effort is probably pretty well prefigured in the work of a generation of management consultants who looked at and tried out all kinds of institutional structures or absences of structure beside the traditional corporate model, generally in pursuit of much the same ends—more innovation, more amenability to change, better decision-making—and with similar mixed-to-disappointing results. I find it weird to hear this kind of thing discussed without reference to previous research.
• waylandsmithers 7y ago
  My org uses a similar ranking method for hiring panels-- your feedback can be anywhere between "I'd quit if we hired the candidate" to "I'd quit if we don't hire this candidate" with a couple options in between, and no option for "maybe" or "I don't know". Of course people try to get around that by saying things like "soft yes"...
• miguelmota 7y ago
  Good advice. The speed of decision making can slow down momentum in a startup and reaching consensus quickly and efficiently is important.