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Holarchy

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This picture attempts to compare and contrast a traditional business hierarchy with a holarchy. Do you think running a company as a holarchy is a viable business option, or is the classic hierarchy the only way to go? If you think hierachies are the only way one can be profitable and stay in business, why?

Thanks for listening

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pomlover

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    • . .•∞º˙ . .•∞º˙
      13 months ago


      in hierarchy chart, managers are the intermediaries between producers and executives--they act as filters to block out 'noise' and only pass along pertinent information to the executive level for decision making. communication is top-down.

      in holarchy chart, executives are exposed to and communicate directly with producers. managers serve no function, since they neither produce or decide. communication is two-way, so executives have direct knowledge of daily business activity and don't need a filter.

      in this sense, managers aren't really relevant. (are they ever though?)
      Conscious Awareness

      • pomlover pomlover
        13 months ago


        Thanks for your interpretation Rick. I can always count on you to weigh in with an insightful (and usually funny as hell) opinion :^)
        Conscious Awareness

        • . .•∞º˙ . .•∞º˙
          13 months ago


          Well, your chart actually brought this to mind, are you familiar with the Golgafrincham?

          (From the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy) http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Places_in_The_Hitchhikers_Guide_to_the_Galaxy/

          Golgafrincham

          Golgafrincham, home of the circling poets of Arium, decided that one third of its population was useless, and devised a ruse to get rid of them by concocting a story that their planet would shortly be destroyed in some great catastrophe. The useless population consisted of middle management, telephone sanitisers, management consultants, marketing executives, hairdressers and the like. Although there were conflicting accounts of the exact nature of the supposed catastrophe, they were generally told that a giant mutant star goat was threatening Golgafrincham. All these people were packed into one of three giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two. Of course they did not follow, and lived happily for a while; but, ironically enough, the whole remaining population shortly afterward died out from a deadly plague spread by unsanitized telephones.

          The Ark eventually crash-landed on the planet Earth, and the Golgafrinchans gradually usurped the native cavemen, becoming the ancestors of humanity but thereby ruining the computer program that the Earth was running to find the question for the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTsdrVHKGlk
          ____________

          What do people want from Fire, anyway?
          Conscious Awareness

          • . .•∞º˙ . .•∞º˙
            13 months ago


            btw--this was my favorite book ever, and the original BBC series was BY FAR the best-written adaptation ever as well. Every one of your charts and graphs here reminds me of the interface images presented by The Guide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqQQh_r_4UU
            Conscious Awareness

            • pomlover pomlover
              13 months ago


              Every one of them? I don't understand the linkage. Could you please explain?

              Thanks.
              Conscious Awareness

              • . .•∞º˙ . .•∞º˙
                13 months ago


                Watch the first episode of that series as linked above. The Hitchiker's Guide is an interactive book with charts and graphs. For the BBC tv series (not the movie, which sucked, and had none of the flavor of the book or the tv series or even the earlier radio program) they constantly go on little side excursions into irrelevant topics that are highly interesting.

                The visual interactives they run during these narratives have a similar flavor and simplicity to your charts--you've got to remember, too, this series was originally aired in England in the late 70's I believe, so at the time, most comparative computer graphics images were along the lines of a Pong game or Mario Bro's, which made these terribly cutting-edge back then, especially for a TV show.

                There's one sequence somewhere at the beginning of the series (can't quite find it yet, but I will) that talks about previous alien invasions that had come along to wipe out the earth prior to the Vogons. One in particular references a race of beings who got ticked off at earth for some reason (don't recall at the moment) so they sent their entire fleet of highly advanced destructive warships on a collision course with earth. But as the visual explains, when they got here to wipe out our planet, they made a serious blunder--they had a problem of scale, (Big circle for earth, little teenie tiny triangles for the alien ships) which meant that their entire invading force was inhaled by a dog and wiped out (or something like that--gotta find it now). Hilarious.

                Read the book. Download the entire youtube library. It's in 10min. segments, no commercials, very enlightening--especially for your Conscious Awareness theme. (I may have to start a Twine on it now! Dang you YouTube for provide more ways to waste away a day!)
                Conscious Awareness

                • . .•∞º˙ . .•∞º˙
                  13 months ago


                  HA HAAAAH!!! Found it. (After having Twined the entire series and watched every episode again. There goes the day!) Here's the sequence...http://splicd.com/Qwii62XcVHQ/140/290

                  (And here's the Twine: http://splicd.com/Qwii62XcVHQ/140/290)

                  Thanks for the reminder...
                  Conscious Awareness

                  • pomlover pomlover
                    12 months ago


                    Nice!

                    I can tell that you're passionate about the subject. I'll definitely be watching some videos and checking out the book. Thanks.
                    Conscious Awareness

          • pomlover pomlover
            13 months ago


            Nope. I wasn't familiar with it. I do remember hearing about "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" when the movie came out years ago. The you tube video is hilarious. A different twist on Alice in Wonderland?

            Thanks
            Conscious Awareness

    • Marc Buyens Marc Buyens
      13 months ago


      Interesting questions and the very essence of the twine I started myself on “Organisational change”. Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer. Rearranging the boxes in a graph is an interesting starting point for discussion, but does not provide a solution.
      As an example, in your holarchy graph, you now have a communications channel between the Executives and the Producers. Needless to say that this does not really exist in today’s hierarchical organisations. So, what does this channel carry? What is the type of relationship? How do these parties interact?
      I must admit that I do not have the ready made answer to this either. A couple of years ago, I wrote some of my ideas on this in a short article that you can read here: http://www.xpragma.com/view64.php. In this case, the starting concept was not a holarchy, but rather the concept of an agile virtual enterprise (AVE). Still, there is some common ground.
      Also in a holarchy, the participating entities need to be on a peer-to-peer level, be it that not every entity has the same decision authority. However, having some specific decision authority does not make you the “boss” of the other entities.
      All nice theories, but how can this work in reality?
      Personally, I do not think that the holarchy or the AVE can exist as a single company (in the sense of our current notion of a ‘company’). For instance, if you take your Producers entity, how can it get to a peer-to-peer relationship with the Executives?
      One of my ideas on this is that Producers must get out of the control scope of the enterprise and become some kind of independent ‘worker company’. Traditional labour unions might deliver some of the necessary structure for this. Then, this producer company would sell its services to the entities that I call ‘lead partners’ in my article.
      Is this a realistic approach? How do we get there?
      Too many questions for a rainy Sunday afternoon...
      Have fun,
      MarcB
      Organizational Behavior

      • pomlover pomlover
        12 months ago


        Hi Marc,

        You're right in that there are no universal one-size-fits-all solutions. The executives-producers relationship would be one of mutual respect and benefit for the organization. The executives would still be the "boss" but the caste system wouldn't be so "in your face" via the total decoupling of the classic hierarchy. The main benefits of this communications channel to the org would be: direct feedback to the execs on how effective/efficient the operation is really running, what the _real_ problems are at the line level, and how well the managers are supporting and leading the work. Instead of soley sitting in a special corner block of nice offices, the executives could be spread out across the physical or virtual facilities and frequently interact with the managers and producers to lessen the "gap of importance" and inspire the troops. Hell every once in a while, an executive could do a vertical dive into a specific problem and help a team solve a problem once in a while. Frequent interaction and occasional deep dives would inspire and motivate the troops more than an occasional trophy and twice a year "all hands" meetings. Of course, pure MBAs don't have a clue on how to relate to the producers or do deep dives, so the obsolete, rigid and inflexible 100 year old hierarchy will still be the standard academic solution for years to come. However, in this day of increasingly rapid change that requires extreme flexibility, adaptability, and agility, this old mode of thinking/structuring is becoming less and less competitive.
        Organizational Behavior

        • Marc Buyens Marc Buyens
          12 months ago


          Very valid points and very visually described. I like the idea of diving managers. Still, nothing blocks them from doing so today. In fact, most of what you describe can also be possible in a traditional hierarchical organisation. Perhaps no natural fit, but still possible and I can even say that in my past career, I experienced this. At least, for a while. Therefore, switching to a holarchy adds some new perspectives, but will not automatically solve the issues of incompetence and greed that cloud today’s business world. Weed killer might.
          Organizational Behavior

          • pomlover pomlover
            12 months ago


            Yes Marc, I think you're absolutely right. It doesn't matter what structure is in place if the leaders don't lead, and the managers don't manage. A flexible holarchical structure isn't necessary or sufficient for top performance. It can be an enabler/catalyst, but when you get right down to it, it's all about the people leading the org :^)
            Organizational Behavior
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