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Build "natural", flexible hierarchies

“We have to de-couple authority and influence from hierarchical position.”

As change accelerates, authoritarian power structures will become ever more untenable. In traditional hierarchies, power flows down from the top, rather than up from the bottom. This model has several unfortunate side effects. It tempts senior executives to hire in their own image, and thus reduces genetic diversity. It encourages managers to safeguard their careers by “managing up,” rather than by managing out and down. It produces frequent misalignments between positional power and leadership capability, and thereby undermines employee morale. To overcome these failings, the traditional top-down pyramid must be replaced by a “natural” hierarchy, where status and influence derive from the ability to lead rather than from the ability to accumulate positional power. In addition, hierarchies need to be dynamic, so that power flows rapidly toward those who are adding value and away from those who aren’t.

42 Stories
108 Hacks
6 Barriers

Build "natural", flexible hierarchies

“We have to de-couple authority and influence from hierarchical position.”

As change accelerates, authoritarian power structures will become ever more untenable. In traditional hierarchies, power flows down from the top, rather than up from the bottom. This model has several unfortunate side effects. It tempts senior executives to hire in their own image, and thus reduces genetic diversity. It encourages managers to safeguard their careers by “managing up,” rather than by managing out and down. It produces frequent misalignments between positional power and leadership capability, and thereby undermines employee morale. To overcome these failings, the traditional top-down pyramid must be replaced by a “natural” hierarchy, where status and influence derive from the ability to lead rather than from the ability to accumulate positional power. In addition, hierarchies need to be dynamic, so that power flows rapidly toward those who are adding value and away from those who aren’t.

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James Carse, in his great book, Finite and Infinite Games, suggests,There are at least two kinds of games.One could be called finite, the other infinite.The finite game is played
Hack by Max Shkud on June 28, 2013
Co-Authored By Bill Veltrop
Decision making process relied for ages (and still does in a majority of cases) on a top-down approach, where decisions are taken by senior executives and executed by all layers below in a pre-defined
Agility requires us to rev up the frequency of our communication, collaboration and coordination as a team.  As the world continues to rev up, we must rev up with it, to handle t
Barrier by Mike Richardson on October 31, 2010
Editor's note: We encourage MIX readers with suggestions to help solve this barrier to enter their ideas in the Comments section.
Barrier by Vivek Chandra on October 17, 2011
This hack is pinpointing some ideas for how companies  - which stand in front of challenge of rapid growth - should go about scaling themselves without losing their engaging, entreprenerial and e
Hack by Magdalena Pawlowicz on November 9, 2011

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