You won't be having nine bosses, you'll be participating in a democracy. And you most likely won't be doing 80% of the work, because tasks will be assigned at regular, democratic meetings.

The illustration is just, well, an illustration. On a real meeting, there should be a set of democratically-decided rules that everyone will have to follow - for instance, no phones, no interruptions, etc. - and an elected leader for the meeting, who will make sure that everyone speaks in turn and keeps track of the order.

Yes!

And also - this sounds boring but it's necessary - you need someone to take minutes. not so much to have the minutes themselves, as to have people aware that suggestions are being recorded, which makes it more likely they will be acted on.

I've been to many meetings of the "Let's get together and talk about these issues" variety at which actions or solutions to a problem are proposed, they are more or less agreed on verbally by those present - and then after the meeting nothing happens. Or, worse, something happens that is in contradiction with what was agreed. Two questions need to be asked repeatedly: "What action are we going to take?" and "Who is going to take that action?" - and if it's decided that Jimmy Jones is going to do such and such, and Jimmy Jones sees that this is going in the minutes, it's much more likely that jimmy Jones will actually do it, rather than forgetting about it and making the meeting a pointless exercise.

Exactly. With proper procedures, grassroots decision-making in workplaces can function just as well as hierarchies.

I wouldn't trust Jim Jones with my goldfish.

I think you could. I got mine back, more or less intact.

He poured Kool-Aid in the fish tank. Not cool, bro.

Like prepared kool aid or just the powder?

Definitely. I think it would be a more effective model for those benefits to come about as well, which would be a good selling point for your boss to have a better understanding of the system and possibly the willingness to transition into it.

Cyanide is its own powder.

Point well made. The company at present is effectively just myself. I regularly meet with our CEO who also owns a printing company in the same office and I act as their prepress department when I'm not creating paperless workflow automation, developing apps, managing clients' social media marketing, or other facets of the app co.

There is one other employee acting as a CSR taking in all ink-on-paper orders. The rest of our operation is fully-automated - everything from pricing to document imposition for press output. It's really a good system.

But as my projects grow our business I may need to bring on a few additional team members. I'll likely be in control of directing our workflow at that stage and depending on the work to be done it may be an opportunity to introduce collaborative methodologies into our operation.

I've been named as the CEO's successor, but I'll have to see how I feel when that time comes. As an INTJ, I feel much more comfortable being the brains behind the scenes than the guy running the show.

It's strange that the first thing the flat group wants to do is structure itself like a hierarchy or tall organization by having a leader.