Is your organization too flat?

If your CEO is making all the decisions, you are likely sub-optimizing

Photo by FreePik

Today’s management gurus extol the virtues of flat or non-hierarchical organizational structures on the belief that, in the knowledge economy, every employee is an asset. Employee empowerment maximizes the return on asset and having fewer management layers facilitates this through faster time-to-market by way of easier and faster decision-making, and improved coordination and speed of communication between employees.

Unfortunately, having a less hierarchical organization is not without challenges. Especially when the organization is large and complex. In large and complex organizations, hierarchy is needed to ensure efficient (and effective) operations through clearly defined lines of communications, duties and responsibilities. With each person performing specialized roles, there is professionalization and elimination of duplication of efforts. With officers focused on the day-to-day ‘tactical’ work, managers on the month-to-month “operational” issues, and senior management on the year-to-year “strategic” concerns, collectively the organization works in harmony towards the mission and vision of the organization.

Answering the question of whether an organization is “too flat,” requires us to first determine the “correct”…