While talking to my good friend @parousia54, he made some valid points which, he was kind enough to compile into a piece and send on email. Though it was a comment for the original article, I felt that it deserved its own comments for the volume as well as the value it was providing. Here it goes :
Having worked in a very very flat organization (reporting directly to the CTO) and currently experiencing the perils/benefits of hierarchy, here are my two cents. The flatness of the organization has a great contribution to the level of ownership one signs up for. The fact that you get to experience the ups and downs a company goes through in terms of performance as a whole has a big part to play in how your contribution is valued by you and the company itself. You are more likely to influence that small change in the product that you think is valuable with a flatter organization. Having said that, the impact of one s ideas can certainly be very well be seen in a hierarchical structure too, but is less likely. This is important because, with greater responsibility comes better output, or at least that is what is expected. It brings to mind the conversation I once had with an employee from one of the leaders in the industry, lets say XYZ. The question I asked was how is the team structure in XYZ and how are decisions made in terms of product development. One must understand that for an organization like XYZ which houses more than 50000 employees, there ought to be some sort of hierarchy and of course there is. The response to my question was that the products are built by teams. Teams are usually small, working remotely at times and are independent. The most important thing I got to learn was that the team makes the decisions towards specific features. Any feature proposed goes through a review committee of people consisting from different other teams. Anyone company wide is encouraged to criticize and comment on any idea/work done on any product. This fact in itself brings the whole development team (Note: criticism and comments are not restricted to the development team) into one single level of operation. This includes the team leaders/ managers who are involved in building these products. The management part of it have their own role where they do not interfere with lets say as to how a feature has to work. Their inputs are directed more towards the revenue generation and the placement/ promotion of the built product. This does not mean that the product is entirely built without their inputs. The company where more than 70% of the employees form this development team are already put under one scale. Each and every person irrespective of where they hold their position in the organization tree is one and the same when it comes to influential inputs. This means that the unless one is really passionate about the product/service that the company has to deliver and if one is not ready to take ownership, the quality will certainly be compromised. Ownership along with responsibility and its benefits are quite clear why “Scrum” is being adopted widely in the IT industry. In a scrum where the whole team takes ownership of what is to be delivered and when brings out the best of the team as a whole.
On the other hand, in a hierarchy, where instructions trickle down the chain, the compromises made are many-fold. To start with, instructions are lost in translation. In addition to that, the work being done is mostly being done to fulfill the instructions of the rung above oneself. This means there is no more autonomy. This also means that there is no responsibility associated with one’s work. If there is an issue or a criticism, that would also trickle down the chain negating the impact it would have had otherwise. This makes it difficult for employees to become passionate about the product/ service they are building. They very well might be passionate about the technology and the tools they deal with on a day to day basis, but all of that goes waste when it does not reflect in the actual output. The only benefit that a hierarchical organization has is order. If the management has a strict road to travel on, they can ensure that the everyone in the team in made to follow it. This is important for any organization but not “the” important thing. When companies decide to go down the road of fulfilling the client demands as the only goal not only are they more likely to build a hierarchy, they have already lost the battle as well.