Think of the game theory and organizational evolution in such a flat hierarchy, especially when the flat section is a middle management level. This flat hierar

Think of the game theory and organizational evolution in such a flat hierarchy, especially when the flat section is a middle management level. This flat hierarchy works at the low level. It already does almost everywhere on the border of "production workers" and "low management". But in the middle management, the incentive is promotion and control. You start out with a flattened hierarchy, and say 20 managers vying for promotion, well, you probably won't get promoted. Then why try hard? Uhoh, now most of your managers will either: 1) leave 2) fight over / jockey over being the "senior level" of the 20 underlings 3) stop trying 4) embezzle 5) gradually conspire to "unflatten" and add more levels, gain control (solid line or dotted line) to the territory of your peers