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Comment by Brajeshwar | Hacker News Reader

I have forgotten the name of another big company that tried this and kinda failed. I hope something comes out of this for Bayer. I remember this because I liked the idea in general and the term stuck with me -- Holacracy (I think I read a book too).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy

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I worked for a company that claimed to use this system. Got fired after arguing with my totally no boss.

You mean your 'advisor'?

Over half a century old but as relevant as ever, The Tyranny of Structurelessness https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can be so easily established because the idea of "structurelessness" does not prevent the formation of informal structures, only formal ones.

There's strong structure with holacracy. There's a hierarchy of roles / responsibilities. It seeks to mitigate parallel informal power dynamics. Consider reading the book.

> claimed

That's the issue: hidden power structures. But holacracy is not automatically false.

Valve does this, but I remember reading about it years ago and (probably) Gabe saying that hiring needs to be done with this in mind, as it requires a certain type of person to be successful. Taking an existing process heavy org and removing management will likely be a mess. I hope they have plans for how to deal with the bumps during the transition.

Zappos, I believe.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zappos-quietly-backed-away-ho...

It seems to me this move will only work if it's a step to a flatter org with managers who efficiently ensure technology is connecting to business needs. Once your org is really broken, half measures won't fix it.

Cutting into middle management does not have to mean they are going for holacracy. The amount of hierarchy is on a scale and is also cultural. If you have too many layers inside a company and feel like nothing gets done, then it certainly makes sense to cut down.

Zappos?

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