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A number of successful companies disagree: 1. Zappos: http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-self-management-memo-to-zappos-employees-2015-4 http://www.busi

by jnbiche 11y ago

A number of successful companies disagree: 1. Zappos: http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-self-management-memo-to-zappos-employees-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-self-management-me... 2. Medium: http://firstround.com/review/How-Medium-is-building-a-new-kind-of-company-with-no-managers/ http://firstround.com/review/How-Medium-is-building-a-new-ki... 3. Valve: https://managing-essentials.com/valve-software-successful-self-organized-and-bossless-company https://managing-essentials.com/valve-software-successful-se...

bjelkeman-again 11y ago
They are the far outliers. Very hard to achieve in my experience.
- fapjacks 11y ago
  Since the enormous vast majority of people only have experience working in companies that would never (and definitely have never) tried a flat organizational structure, I think this is kind of a disingenuous statement. From the outside those companies do look like far outliers. But I have a suspicion that hierarchy is only extremely relevant without technology. What I mean here is that technology is a great organizational "flattener" and I think since technology like this is still in its infancy, we can't really make a blanket statement like "this is very hard to achieve". Obviously, you're right to some degree, but I think that is only an artifact of technology not yet having revolutionized "the organization".
  - rhc2104 11y ago
    Stripe is an example of a company that prided itself on a manager-less structure, but then converted to having management.
    - fapjacks 11y ago
      Sure, but the same can be said for organizations that were once hierarchical, but then went flat.
reagency 11y ago
Zappos had managers for over a decade before recently starting an experiment to go manager-free. Medium is a tiny company. Valve...had some interesting claims surface when their structure was discussed here. Such as a shadow management structure.

by jnbiche 11y ago

bjelkeman-again 11y ago

They are the far outliers. Very hard to achieve in my experience.

fapjacks 11y ago
Since the enormous vast majority of people only have experience working in companies that would never (and definitely have never) tried a flat organizational structure, I think this is kind of a disingenuous statement. From the outside those companies do look like far outliers. But I have a suspicion that hierarchy is only extremely relevant without technology. What I mean here is that technology is a great organizational "flattener" and I think since technology like this is still in its infancy, we can't really make a blanket statement like "this is very hard to achieve". Obviously, you're right to some degree, but I think that is only an artifact of technology not yet having revolutionized "the organization".
- rhc2104 11y ago
  Stripe is an example of a company that prided itself on a manager-less structure, but then converted to having management.
  - fapjacks 11y ago
    Sure, but the same can be said for organizations that were once hierarchical, but then went flat.

reagency 11y ago

Zappos had managers for over a decade before recently starting an experiment to go manager-free. Medium is a tiny company. Valve...had some interesting claims surface when their structure was discussed here. Such as a shadow management structure.