Music Banter - View Single Post - Horizontal / Flat Management Structures, Workplace Democracies

Neapolitan · 04-05-2016, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

So delighted to see everyone's feedback! Let me address each point made thus far.

First off, the illustration in the original post is indeed a very poor representation of a horizontal structure. This is much more accurate:

And the interactions of the members at the cooperative base rank would look more like this:

This model satisfies the statement that "someone must be in charge", whether that person is democratically appointed to their position or not, the point is the significant amount of direct collaboration between the majority of the members of the organization.

And I've found a succinct article from the HBR which directly addresses many of the questions posed by skeptics of flat business structures. Check this out -

The hierarchy or tall organization seems more efficient. On average any one person has to deal with 3.6 people. The round table the average a person has to deal with seven people, and the round table has two less people than in the tall organization. With the flat organization you have to deal with more people and coordinate your actions with everyone. If there are ten people in your group you increase who you have to report to from one person to nine people. You'll have nine bosses. One day you'll find out you are doing 80% of the work will all the other are doing 20% and you'll resent it. Going in you thought everyone is equal and everything is done equally. And one day when you go into work, and look around at your flat organization, you'll realize that is not the case. Pareto principle will bitch slap you in the face and you'll hate your life and hate your job and resent all the rest because the amount of effort you put into it.