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resident increases by 15%. But when companies get bigger, innovation or productivity per employee generally goes down,” he explains. “We’re trying to figure out how to structure Zappos more like a city, and less like a bureaucratic corporation.” HR should not confuse Holacracy with ‘Anarchy’. While employees are able to chart a personal course and organise themselves, Zappos will maintain a group of people charged with leading the company as a unit and a business. Zappos describes Holacracy as decoupling the technical and people-focused aspects of management. While traditionally a manager would be responsible for both elements, Holacracy allows the various responsibilities of management to be disseminated among employees best suited to them. In effect, the role of a manager is made obsolete, and self-direction is brought to the forefront. Zappos hopes that productivity can be bolstered this way, as politics and bureaucracy become limited. Individuals are able to evolve the organisation’s structure to respond quickly to market conditions, creating a flexible structure as they go. The complete overhaul that adopting Holacracy often involves comes with its own set of trials and tribulations. “Holacracy is super difficult,” Christa Foley, senior HR manager at Zappos, tells HRD. “It is such a dramatic shift from traditional structures that it really takes at least six months for employees to get it and begin to see the value in it … you really need to understand this and make sure your employees understand this so they can rally with you.”
THE STEAM SOLUTION While management across the board is getting flatter and Holacracy is on the rise, US-based video game company Valve has taken the next step and adopted a purely flat, job-title-barren approach to work. “A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one’s there telling you what to do” prefaces the company’s employee handbook. The organisation’s structure is described as one in which employees are able to pick and choose which projects they work on. When someone has an idea, they begin work on it and mention it to others. If other employees are interested, they too
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will contribute, resulting in the project getting off the ground and developing. It is here that Valve’s structure begins to resemble circles or silos of management. Instead, these are referred to as ‘cabals’. Cabals are also referred to as ‘multidisciplinary project teams’ and are self-organised. The groups are temporary and are generated to help ensure a project is shipped, forming organically around the people who work on it. The temporary structures will often mean that team leaders emerge, but their role is not of traditional management. Instead they act as a resource: other team members can rely on them to be aware of all details of the project at hand. Other temporary internal structures may also develop. A fluid, flexible structure is the true aim of Valve’s ‘flatland’ approach: codified or persisting structures can become self-serving and result in the projects themselves becoming devalued. “If you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Wow that sounds like a lot of responsibility’ you’re right,” the handbook reads. “Any time you interview a potential hire, you need to ask yourself not only if they’re talented or collaborative but also if they’re capable of literally running this company, because they will be.” However, Valve’s structure has its critics. A former employee, Jeri Elsworth, spoke out against the structure last year in an interview with the Grey Area Podcast. Elsworth described the structure as “pseudoflat”, adding that a hidden layer of powerful management had manifested in the company, making it “a lot like high school”. “There are popular kids that have acquired power in the company, then there’s the trouble makers, and everyone in between.”
All the young dudes While Zappos and game software maker Valve are making headlines for their strides, many other organisations are doing away with traditional corporate hierarchies for flatter or otherwise alternative structures, including: • Google
• KPMG
• Apple
• 37signals
• SoftwareMill
Source: tibbr.com, inc.com, softwaremill.com
LEADERS OF FLATLAND Roma Gaster, director at The Leadership Circle Asia Pacific, feels that traditional management structures will be forced to adjust to meet today’s complex business environment, with collaboration, shared accountability and collective decisionmaking becoming the norm as adaptive and flatter organisational structures emerge. Gaster’s primary takeaway for HR directors embarking on a flatter management initiative is an understanding of leadership in a less hierarchydriven organisation. “It means more than one person is responsible
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