[otis_inf]

Hierarchy is not only there for 'telling X to do ABC', but also to make clear who takes responsibility. If there's no leader, who's responsible for decisions taken? A random person who happens to be in a team who did something which turned out to be very stupid? All of them? No one? When a decision is made by X, the people who execute it didn't decide on it, X did, which means X takes responsibility, not the people who execute the decision.

Another aspect which is overlooked in the article is: to get things done, you have to make unpopular decisions sometimes: i.e. cut features to make a deadline, to ship a version, to stop adding stuff and work towards a release. No-one wants to make those, they're called 'unpopular' for a reason. But you have to make them to avoid a state where things aren't ready and never will be. There's a difference between 'being able to ship' and 'being able to ship a usable product'.

Funny that they refer to Valve with the text:

> At the video-game maker Valve, new employees are told not to expect instructions, because even the managing director “isn’t your manager,” says the employee handbook. “You have the power to green-light projects. You have the power to ship products.” And so they do.

I'd like to mention 'Half Life 3'. ;)

[cma]

>If there's no leader, who's responsible for decisions taken? A random person who happens to be in a team who did something which turned out to be very stupid?

Blame-shifting doesn't always happen, but when it does, it almost universally goes down the hierarchy, not up.

[hoorayimhelping]

Almost universally? Got any examples that show this almost universal attribute? Off the top of my head, from the past couple of months alone, I can think of the VW CEO, Ellen Page (reddit's former CEO) who were ousted from their companies for decisions that didn't go over well.

[cafard]

In one notably hierarchical organization, the US Navy, blame certainly travels up. Captains who have been off-watch and sound asleep when a subordinate did something wrong can find their careers ended.

[h611500]

This is also the primary reason why their customer service is so terrible. Nobody wants to do this 'unpopular' job. They'd rather work on their on stuff.

[versteegen]

I also wonder at requiring that new hires spend at least one week in the call centre during their induction. They might not know what they need at that point!

[xedarius]

I often wonder how quickly Valve would have abandoned that handbook if they didn't receive the guaranteed revenue stream from Steam.

[manuelflara]

Also, I wonder: didn't Valve used to have a normal hierarchy years ago? You know, back when they used to ship stuff? I'm genuinely curious to find out if that's the case. If that's true, then it seems that Valve only "stalled" after adopting this company structure.

[kybernetikos]

But it's also possible to argue that that guaranteed revenue stream would not have come about if they hadn't had the structure they did.

[versteegen]

Holacracy is all about distributing authority out to the furthest nodes of the company. "Decisions are made locally." Employees take up well defined roles, and AIUI are generally responsible for both making decisions and implementing them. Of course there are also meetings, I'm sure in practice many decisions are made with consensus.

> to get things done, you have to make unpopular decisions sometimes

...but I have no idea how this works in Holacracy.

[mvitorino]

Absolutely agree, it is against human nature. Everyone has a boss, whether they think of them as a boss or not, is something entirely different.

[versteegen]

Counter-argument: the justification given for Holacracy is that generally in life groupings of people aren't structured in that way. The example they give is that in a city there are no bosses, everyone choses a career, looks for work, finds accomodation, etc, independently. The mayor isn't your boss. This is of course the foundation of capitalism: free agents.

[paulojreis]

Can you add a source for the "human nature" argument?