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>Effective teamwork against threats requires not hierarchy, but egalitarianism; not centralized power, but a culture in which all voices count. >An organizatio
by PKop 4y ago
>Effective teamwork against threats requires not hierarchy, but egalitarianism; not centralized power, but a culture in which all voices count.
>An organization that doesn’t face external threat...should function perfectly well with a bureaucratic and hierarchical structure. In a highly competitive market, though, egalitarian tendencies may support employee cooperation and, consequently, performance.
Interesting, let's take a look at a meaningful example...
>Navy SEALS exemplify this idea. Strict hierarchy dominates out in the field: When a leader says go left, they go left. But when the team returns for debrief, “they literally leave their stripes at the door,” says Greer. The hierarchy disappears; nobody is a leader, nobody a follower.
Heh, ok then. So when everyone has skin in a real game of existential threats, hierarchy prevails and leaders lead with direct commands and followers follow. When they come home and the threat is gone, more relaxed egalitarian structures take over.
It's weird to use the military as some prototypical example of flatness over hierarchy, when it is the epitome throughout history of hierarchical structure, rank, clear leadership etc.
This whole discussion sounds to me like advice for leaders in a hierarchy, with responsibility and authority, how to best use that authority to run their organization successfully which will inevitably include delegation, taking advice from lower levels, having open debate and critique etc. Not to flatten everything into egalitarian chaos and mass "Bystander effect" where no one is accountable and decisions don't get made when needed.
- dgb23 4y ago> Heh, ok then. So when everyone has skin in a real game of existential threats, hierarchy prevails and leaders lead with direct commands and followers follow. When they come home and the threat is gone, more relaxed egalitarian structures take over. I think it is more nuanced than that. On the field, the ones who call the shots make tactical/operational decisions. Often these types of decisions are drilled. When they get "home", they make strategical decisions. What to improve, what to work on, where to go from here etc. Those are more complex and social and they have a big mid to long term impact on further tactical decisions and so on. You want the brainpower and the buy in of the whole team here. I think this distinction is very important. Small, tactical decisions should be made efficiently and followed efficiently. You prefer that they are close to automatic, but in some cases you need to improvise. That's not hierarchy, it is clean, efficient, fast communication. It's only hierarchical if the people who execute are not on board up front. Strategical decisions are different, they are planned up front, so you need to consider a ton of possibilities, situations, tactics and you need to consider people's capabilities and needs. The most effective political organizations tend to lean towards this model of strategical decisions being made democratically. You make the rules together and decide the direction together. But when it comes to the day to day, people just execute what is previously discussed in a more automatic manner, with corrections and improvisation where needed.