Thanks Bryan--it's a pretty classic tale: the enthusiasm of community and informality at the beginning of the start up gives way to the reality of scale--and most organizations end up defaulting back to some kind of hierarchy. The still largely unsolved problem is how not to move back to hierarchy as one grows bigger. The Red Hat solution--a sort of hybrid hierarchy ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookmanville/2016/01/28/red-hat-redux-the-open-ish-organization/#568f6835480e)--seems to a version of the best available answers now emerging. I think one of the "learning agenda" items for the Ambassadors should be how different models of "open" reach greater scale. It's a still unsolved--and critical--problem.
Cheers On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 8:01 AM, Bryan Behrenshausen <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi folks, > > Over the weekend, trusted ambassador Phil Foster sent me some great > reading from the founder of Quartz, whose company just surpassed the > "magic 150" mark (that is, it now employs more than 150 people). > Crossing that threshold marked an inflection point for the organization: > > > In retrospect, it’s easy to see why our flat management structure, > with limited hierarchical levels and consensus-based decision-making, > ceased being as effective as it once was. Too often, our staff was > stalled because it wasn’t clear who was responsible for moving a > decision forward. Employees craved more feedback and career development > than managers in the flat structure had bandwidth to provide. Also, > information about and ownership of our strategy, norms, and values > weren’t spread adequately across our staff, as our ad hoc approach to > internal communications showed its limitations. > > It's a nice read and, I thought, well worth sharing. Thanks, Phil! > > B > > _______________________________________________ > Openorg-list mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/openorg-list > -- *Brook Manville* *Principal, Brook Manville LLC* *http://www.brookmanville.com/ <http://www.brookmanville.com/>* *Twitter* <https://twitter.com/> *@brookmanville* *blogging at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookmanville/ <http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookmanville/>*
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