Bosses or no bosses

Zappos recently announced that they will get rid of bosses and traditional managers to instead opt for an organizational structure "with a series of overlapping, self-governing “circles.” In theory, this gives employees more of a voice in the way the company is run."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/01/03/zappos-…

I find this interesting since one management consultancy firm I worked for also had this organizational approach with no "bosses" where everyone instead was supposed to be their own boss and thus take more responsibility and initiative. One of the said pluses was to move the decision making as far out in the organization as possible and thus making it more agile and efficient.

Now, my personal opinion is that there is no point in having too much hierarchy but really, where do you find a company today with a strong hierarchy and who doesn't brag that they have a "flat organization"?

I'm skeptical to the organizational approach of Zappos and my former employer, as I believe that when you get rid of bosses you also lose the notion that there will always be someone responsible and someone who can "point with the whole hand" and give an order when needed. No bosses are great as long as everyone is happy doing what they are doing, but as soon as someone has to do something they don't want to do, there's always the risk that no one will take responsibility and no one will do it if there's no boss around.

Interested in hearing others opinions and experiences of this, especially among other consultancy firms.

 

Decision making shifts to informal channels. This is basically a management shakeout that's not an openly state management shakeout. Think what happens in politics if you do the same thing: the local tough/rich guys take over when a gov't collapses, then they get "recognized" as the new gov't. What's happening here is that all the middle layers of reporting aren't doing their jobs the way the company hopes, but senior management is more interested in testing a pet theory than rolling up their sleeves and, uhm, running a company.

Personally, I'm not a fan of these experiments. Look what happened to UBS when they attempted using a heavily matriced layout: the company took huge losses and is now restructuring along extremely conservative lines. They got too creative with their reality and now are going old school. This has cost them dearly. Had they simply streamlined their structure, they would have been fine...instead, they almost wrecked the company.

This could very well work out, so maybe I'm wrong. Either way, I'd expect to see volatility in the stock. If it works, the stock price will go up, if not, then yeah they'll take a hit. Until the results become apparent, the price will fluctuate.

Get busy living
 

My thoughts as well that it is something of a management fad right now, just as outsourcing was the greatest thing a company could do in the 80s and 90s.

I believe that corporate management/strategies is cyclical to a degree and wouldn't be surprised if we'll see companies going back to a more hierarchical structure in the coming years when the hype of the "flat organization" has passed.

 

Agreed. Outsourcing is good for some jobs for sure, and companies would be foolish not to, but there's just a lot of stuff you want done 1) in house and 2) by Americans. Call centers are #1 on the list. Certain manufacturing is another (hello defense industry and food production). Hell yeah I'd pay a couple bucks a month more for service that was actually useful. And it's the right thing to do. You can only gut the middle class so far before people don't have money to buy the shit you're selling. And if there's a ladder people can climb, they'll put more effort in. Staggering amounts of bright, educated, motivated people don't give two shits about their job because they know there's no long term payoff....this is a long term mistake.

What baffles me is that the people running these agendas are very well educated and connected. They should know better, but they think their position protects them indefinitely against bad decisions. The good part, from my perspective, is that hungry and opportunistic folks can make their opportunity taking advantage of the void that such decisions create. When a big, estabilished company/player screws up, some new upstart is waiting in the wings to pounce. That's capitalism, and established interests talk about this...now they get to be on the recieving end. For all the talk of "indespensible leadership", there's tons of bright people waiting to replace any business leader. Look within your organization. Sure there's a few people that produce so much it would be hard to replace them, but then look at the legion of upstarts waiting for their shot....

Get busy living
 
Best Response

Funny, I just ordered "The Peter Principle: Why things always go wrong" from Amazon, which touches on these exacts points you bring up. I'm really looking forward to reading it. Even though it was written in 1969 it seems just as current today.

"What baffles me is that the people running these agendas are very well educated and connected. They should know better, but they think their position protects them indefinitely against bad decisions."

I recently had a discussion of just this with a friend of mine who is a product manager in a large media company and he was pissed that his boss and his bosses boss seemed utterly incompetent. We reached the conclusion that even though you may be well educated and smart, as soon as you get a top management position, for many hubris kicks in and you start believing that you're always right. It doesn't help that many of these top managers are surrounded by yes-sayers who wish to be on good terms with the guy at the top (CxO) and thus the bullshitting continues ad infinitum.

 

Odio est magnam quo ea. Dolor vel officia laudantium porro eos. Perspiciatis in velit non dolores architecto quasi ad.

Consequatur aut et quia commodi rerum asperiores. Ut nihil et nisi et ab qui pariatur. Omnis quis earum nulla voluptatem aut voluptatibus.

Dolor molestiae saepe fugiat. Enim et aut nemo atque. Qui iure ipsa ipsa.

Asperiores quis aut nostrum explicabo. Harum pariatur et autem voluptas. Error necessitatibus consectetur rem et praesentium ut quo. Quo minima quaerat nisi at. Vel sed consequatur animi voluptas voluptates. Laudantium aut autem et quaerat sint. Quam aut autem dignissimos nemo aspernatur.

Get busy living

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Consulting

  • Bain & Company 99.4%
  • McKinsey and Co 98.9%
  • Boston Consulting Group (BCG) 98.3%
  • Oliver Wyman 97.7%
  • LEK Consulting 97.2%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Consulting

  • Bain & Company 99.4%
  • Cornerstone Research 98.9%
  • Boston Consulting Group (BCG) 98.3%
  • McKinsey and Co 97.7%
  • Oliver Wyman 97.2%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Consulting

  • Bain & Company 99.4%
  • McKinsey and Co 98.9%
  • Boston Consulting Group (BCG) 98.3%
  • Oliver Wyman 97.7%
  • LEK Consulting 97.2%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Consulting

  • Partner (4) $368
  • Principal (25) $277
  • Director/MD (55) $270
  • Vice President (47) $246
  • Engagement Manager (99) $225
  • Manager (152) $170
  • 2nd Year Associate (158) $140
  • 3rd+ Year Associate (108) $130
  • Senior Consultant (329) $130
  • Consultant (586) $119
  • 1st Year Associate (538) $119
  • NA (15) $119
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (145) $115
  • Engineer (6) $114
  • 2nd Year Analyst (342) $102
  • Associate Consultant (166) $98
  • 1st Year Analyst (1046) $87
  • Intern/Summer Associate (188) $84
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (547) $67
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
5
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
6
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
7
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
10
numi's picture
numi
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”