I’m fortunate to ask questions to world class people. One is Tim Pley. He is a former fire chief, and head of the BC Fire Chief’s Association. He also happens to be the current city manager for Port Alberni. He is a mentor and support to people he works with and an all around fantastic human. He was the right person to have a conversation with about hierarchy as an organizational model.
Hierarchy is the most effective organizational principle we know of in relation to getting a task accomplished. Hierarchy helps people know who does what, when and how. It simplifies social interactions and functions as an incentive system since those at the top receive greater reward and face fewer threats. This creates an incentive to work hard and move up the ranks to enjoy the associated rewards. From wolves to bees to humans, we all subvert our individual desires in order to serve an outcome that is beneficial to the collective. For most animals who do not have the same sense of self and other as humans do, this principle is uncontested. In humans, the outcome of subverting your own desires must valuable enough, that you are willing to trade something you value personally for that outcome.
There are other times when hierarchy does not serve us. At its worst, it can silence great ideas, and even kill people. I asked Tim “when does hierarchy fail as an organizational model”. His answer was “When there is no fire.” Tim noticed that as soon as they returned to the fire house, or once the task of actually putting out the structure fire was over, the returns that hierarchy offered his team were greatly reduced. The fire hall would return to a more flat organization that maintained some of the separation characteristic of hierarchy. This made it easier to maintain the chain of command at the next fire.
This point is echoed in Adam Galinsky’s book, “Friend and Foe”. “The more human the task, the less hierarchy helps.” He points out how adherence to hierarchies contributed to an 182.3 billion dollar bailout, a failed invasion, and deaths on the world’s tallest peak. What makes a task truly human according to Galinsky is its cognitive complexity. “Humans more than any other species, have the capacity to learn from each other and produce insights that build off each other’s knowledge.”
How do we retain all the benefits that Hierarchy offers while reducing the downside? IDEO is an award-winning global design firm. They rely on creativity and ideas to be competitive. They also need to deliver for their clients. Their work necessitates an organizational model that allows creativity to thrive as well as supporting production. To support both these ends, they have ingeniously created a sliding organizational model that optimizes for the task. When the task is more intellectual, the company creates leadership groups that minimize hierarchy. The person in the position of “leader” becomes a facilitator in service of the group to generate ideas. And when the best idea needs to be identified and eventually produced, IDEO reverts back to a hierarchy. This provides the division of labour necessary to coordinate the physical activity of getting the job done. This intentional flexibility lets IDEO take advantage of more benefits and suffer fewer drawbacks associated with functioning in a hierarchy.
Organizational models are tools. If you’re like me and have sat down to create a static model of something that flexes and breathes, there is a degree of betrayal that comes with the lines and squares on paper that are meant to represent the complexity of your organization. Working in a new context of flexible but defined organizational structures that are tools in service of an outcome will create more wins more frequently. Know when to have more vs. less hierarchy and the result might astonish you.