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Business in the western world is operated on internal hierarchy. This is an anti thesis to a free market. Free market is supposed to go be a bottom-up approach. So in essence, hierarchy is anti-free market. This leads me to ask if a business can function without hierarchy?
I don't agree with your assumption and neither would folks like Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, Warren Bennis, etc.
Internal hierarchy is an absolute requirement for any organization that employs/utilizes more than a handful of employees. Without it, chaos would eventually reign. For example, think of a NFL team. How well would one do if there were no internal hierarchy? If no one was calling the plays? If there were no clear and mutually-understood and -agreed roles and responsibilities? If there was no common definition of victory? The same is true of any organization attempting to "play ball" in the free market.
Now, just to be clear, how the internal hierarchy is structured and run can either maximize, or handicap, the success of an organization, either on the playing field or in the free market.
I can't think of a single institution which isn't hierarchical. It's natural and vital. Otherwise you'd have Brownian motion. Someone has to give direction. Someone under him has to transmit the orders. Those lower down have to follow them. Where is it otherwise?
Business in the western world is operated on internal hierarchy.
Business in the, ah, Eastern world is also operated on internal hierarchy; generally they are even more regimented than those in the West. In one of my jobs I had frequent, fairly intense contact with executives, business representatives and government officials from Japan, China and Taiwan. Talk about internal hierarchy...!
I don't agree with your assumption and neither would folks like Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, Warren Bennis, etc.
Internal hierarchy is an absolute requirement for any organization that employs/utilizes more than a handful of employees. Without it, chaos would eventually reign. For example, think of a NFL team. How well would one do if there were no internal hierarchy? If no one was calling the plays? If there were no clear and mutually-understood and -agreed roles and responsibilities? If there was no common definition of victory? The same is true of any organization attempting to "play ball" in the free market.
Now, just to be clear, how the internal hierarchy is structured and run can either maximize, or handicap, the success of an organization, either on the playing field or in the free market.
The financial minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, was part of a company with no bosses. Every employee was of equal rank with one another. He talks about it in this podcast. According to him, it can work.
The financial minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, was part of a company with no bosses. Every employee was of equal rank with one another. He talks about it in this podcast. According to him, it can work.
There is no small amount of reasoning for the rise in egalitarian structured team work that has surpassed the old notions of a hierarchy being a necessary part of corporate function. Many times in my work career there were teams assembled by a core of people who were apprised of a necessary task, then by invitation the rest of the principles were added to the team, each attending with their particular knowledge base serving the goals of a singular goal regarding a body of work or the solving of problems.
The days of management types attempting to solve problems while pontificating from their Ivory towers were gone, replaced by a more direct method using select persons to serve as business function focal's who would take the necessary initiatives for team creation minus any management. At first this was a little hairy for the fact that many of the team members were in the habit of speaking and dominating things to the extent that managers would be forced to reign them in for the good of all.
The funny thing that occurred in this scenario of equals was the morphing realization that some on every team were able to establish their own dominance based upon their meritorious contribution in past team efforts. In other words we all learned quickly who's judgement to trust. This was a very instructive exercise for the fact that it totally did away with the old gripe of bosses being too far removed from our work to understand it any longer.
Everybody was an expert in their own field and this helped get around the old complaint of seeing the bosses buds being the leaders and making decisions, instead the results of these team's efforts were real do-able fixes for our worst production problems. The company was historically structured along the lines of the military, with reporting going up and down the chain of command, this reporting became the aggregate of management's work most days.
This kind of team management of the company's business began to be a norm in the upper reaches of it's leadership, no managers, just people who had the dual expertise of their normal discipline plus their new-found talent for working toward a common goal. This was a seventy billion dollar a year business, and the changes were making it function much smoother than the old days in which several layers of management were coming up with edicts that mirrored their incompetence more than anything else.
Some hierarchy will always be a necessity but the multitudes of mid level managers are becoming like the dinosaur, unable to find their sustenance in the new business models.
Without a conventional hierarchy in a business you would have chaos, someone has to be the boss or nothing would get done. For some reason I'm thinking about Survivor the TV show. When the castaways first get to where their camp will be nothing gets done until someone steps up and directs, "you 3 build a shelter, you collect firewood etc.."
It is human nature to be in charge or be over someone else.
It is animal nature in that there is always a top, ape, dog, cat, deer. There are animals that do just eat, sleep and propagate but those usually have a lower intelligence.
The world has a hierarchy and if we didn't not much would get done. We can only hope that there will be a trickle down benefit from the top so everyone can prosper.
There are tribes in some part of the world that have little desire of managing others or being managed. Businesses are conducted fine there, but obviously no one will get ultra rich by ripping people off.
The capitalistic philosophy of much of the world on the other had can only achieve their goal by dominating over others.
No, not everyone in this world has the human nature to control others. Not everyone.
There is no small amount of reasoning for the rise in egalitarian structured team work that has surpassed the old notions of a hierarchy being a necessary part of corporate function. Many times in my work career there were teams assembled by a core of people who were apprised of a necessary task, then by invitation the rest of the principles were added to the team, each attending with their particular knowledge base serving the goals of a singular goal regarding a body of work or the solving of problems.
The days of management types attempting to solve problems while pontificating from their Ivory towers were gone, replaced by a more direct method using select persons to serve as business function focal's who would take the necessary initiatives for team creation minus any management. At first this was a little hairy for the fact that many of the team members were in the habit of speaking and dominating things to the extent that managers would be forced to reign them in for the good of all.
The funny thing that occurred in this scenario of equals was the morphing realization that some on every team were able to establish their own dominance based upon their meritorious contribution in past team efforts. In other words we all learned quickly who's judgement to trust. This was a very instructive exercise for the fact that it totally did away with the old gripe of bosses being too far removed from our work to understand it any longer.
Everybody was an expert in their own field and this helped get around the old complaint of seeing the bosses buds being the leaders and making decisions, instead the results of these team's efforts were real do-able fixes for our worst production problems. The company was historically structured along the lines of the military, with reporting going up and down the chain of command, this reporting became the aggregate of management's work most days.
This kind of team management of the company's business began to be a norm in the upper reaches of it's leadership, no managers, just people who had the dual expertise of their normal discipline plus their new-found talent for working toward a common goal. This was a seventy billion dollar a year business, and the changes were making it function much smoother than the old days in which several layers of management were coming up with edicts that mirrored their incompetence more than anything else.
Some hierarchy will always be a necessity but the multitudes of mid level managers are becoming like the dinosaur, unable to find their sustenance in the new business models.
When people talk about any Dreamy egalitarian business structure, what they're really talking about is the illumination of power, domination, or greed. That simply isn't going to be possible for these utopian types. Businesses will always come up with new practices, some of which may seem less hierarchical. That is because these new structures are more effective and efficient with new forms of technology and new forms of consumer demands. They are always used to generate the maximum amount of profits and to reduce business expense and labor cost. If you're talking about trendy new business practices, yes that will always emerge. If you're talking about a type of socialist business where people truly work together to solve problems and there is no more the necessity of managers, that model will not be applicable to the vast majority of businesses organizations and situations.
What underlies this mentality is essentially the dilemma that left-wing ideologues face. On the one hand they recognize the fact of evolution, in which a brutal process of power and domination occur. On the other hand, they seek to change, alter, eradicate the foundations of such evolution that they let you others as inevitable and natural. any egalitarian structure will eventually give rise to dominating voices. But of course, young and handsome liberal business owners are always going to appear at whatever ideas Festival and tell us how they all kayak to solve the worlds worst problems. Hypocrisy is indeed what humans are at the best.
Business in the western world is operated on internal hierarchy. This is an anti thesis to a free market. Free market is supposed to go be a bottom-up approach. So in essence, hierarchy is anti-free market. This leads me to ask if a business can function without hierarchy?
Depends how you define hierarchy. Unless everyone literally has the same job and is equally competent at said job, there's gonna be some level of hierarchy.
In theory, it's possible for a small business to not have strict rules who a boss is. Each person would contribute to the company the job they are assigned, and they'd all strive for a common goal. The issue is how is the goal decided? In traditional business, the final decision goes to the boss. I suppose if you eliminated hierarchy, you could have the goal determined by a vote. But then you run the risk of making an incredibly stupid business decision because the graphic designer and the accountant will have a very different understanding of how a business operates.
In general, I think all business should have at least some aspect of hierarchy. But in the case of small businesses (which are frankly the only businesses I really care about since corporations play by their own rules; but that's another discussion), I think a less rigid structure could be successful. Everyone's input should be taken into consideration by the boss. The boss can still be a member of the team, in that he's just running up a project. But it's asinine to not have any hierarchy what so ever. I'm not saying the 'top' needs to have significantly more benefits and unlimited power over those who work for him, but long term business decisions should be left up to people who are trained to make those decisions. In order for that to work properly, at least some hierarchy will need to exist.
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