Hacker News Reader

Comment by JacobThreeThree | Hacker News Reader

The common criticism of the ultra-flat organization models is that it breeds unwritten rules enforced by cliques.

I've seen exactly the same dynamic happen in hierarchical organizations—the hierarchy and bureaucracy might have ameliorated some of the pathologies, but it just as easily magnified others while also bringing in its own. It definitely made the core organization more legible but that isn't healthy in and of itself and has some steep costs both in direct overhead and, worse yet, in decreasing the organization's flexibility and adaptability.

A useful counter-balance perspective is provided by [0] Tyranny of Structurelessness.

[0] https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

I do think legibility is actually very helpful, especially as organizations grow in size. I'm wondering why you are saying that legibility isn't healthy in and of itself.

Say, for example, I am working on a task and I need something done which is not normal. For example, I may need to make a change to some service that is running, or get permissions or ownership of some object assigned to my account. Because of the legibility that bureaucracy brings, I can find the relevant team with ability/authority to solve my problem, or I can discover that no such team exists.

If the team exists, then that's great. I can talk directly to people with experience with whatever problem I'm solving, who know the relevant policies / risks / recommendations. If the team doesn't exist, I can still just make the change myself. If the team exists but won't help me, I can hand the problem off to my manager. If the relevant people are on vacation, I can find out who has power in their stead. (There are some cases where this doesn't work--my experience is that this usually involves some inflexible legal requirement, or some essential technical expertise, and the relevant person is on vacation.)

This legibility brings a sort of "mindlessness" to the bureaucracy. I have high confidence that soon, I will either solve the problem, or the problem will belong to somebody else. I don't have to think too hard about what the right thing to do is when it's outside my domain, except in the exceptional cases.

This anecdotal review from a former Valve employee seems to indicate as much.

https://youtu.be/41XgkLKYuic

Yet it's interesting that despite Valve having what is essentially a monopoly on PC storefronts and the implicit corporate hierarchy with alleged double-crossing, there is little complaint about Steam as a service from most users.

There is always a hierarchy regardless of whether the HR database reflects it or not. The HR database only grants a hierarchy legitimacy, nothing more, nothing less. Regardless even in places where there is a hierarchy you will see getting promoted means nothing unless you have influence with the powers that be.

In many ways these power structures are a feature of any large people operation. You just need to get used to them.

Things will be chaotic, but modern software development does some good ideas to the table to maintain order. Things like Agile, OKRs etc might not be perfect but they do help.

This isn't a criticism if you state "it ad-hoc leaders are empowered to steer quality and take on adaptive situational roles."

And in contrast to, "centrally consolidated power attempts to shift and contort people and cliques to meet external, largely disinterested expectations and save face" -- the appeal is pretty obvious.

Which is true for all hierarchical orgs I’ve ever seen as well

this. All human organisations have unwritten rules enforced by cliques.

In hierarchical organisations you have to deal with the whims of the sociopath above you as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com