Demolishing hierarchies

by admin on May 10, 2007

Sig Rinde has another pop at hierarchies, illustrating his argument with a couple of real life anecdotes:

Bugger applications and software ROI and efficiency gains, nope, it’s about making organisational hierarchies less important and making customers like me happy and car sales men productive and mobile phone services acceptable.

Hey Sig – I’m with you but I wonder whether it’s workable. Large companies have rules to prevent rogue managers doing stupid things and costing them a fortune. Just as ‘we’ are the 1% innovators, the 1% idiots can cause 10% damage.

Maybe what we really need is flexibility. The ability to call someone perhaps and request a policy exception change. It can’t be that hard.  

 

  • http://thingamy.typepad.com/ sig

    Dennis,

    if it’s worth doing then one must focus on how to make it work… don’t you think?

    Simplest alternative to rules is transparency, much more efficient I think most would agree: Put ten guys in a room and let all hear and see all that happens – peer pressure kicks in, instant “ethics” ensues (who would steal a Snicker bar when all can see it?) and correction, nah better, help will kick in instantly.

    That would be the ultimate so it boils down to: How to get the “ten-guys-in-a-room” effect to work for 100,000 employees!

    Doable I say… do I have to hint how (or with what) now? ;)

    And if doable just imagine the gains!

  • http://thingamy.typepad.com/ sig

    Ah, forgot, to your last paragraph:

    Orange actually have a service, that you have to pay for of course, where you have one number who can circumvent the stupid hierarchy and get things done!

    And American Express has something of the same for Gold or Black cards and so forth…

    Is that utterly nuts or what? They know how stupid they are, and how utterly frustrated their customers are and then parlay that into a business opportunity!

    Their default service is to punch my nose repeatedly, then have me pay to end the abuse and then calling that a real customer centric service… eh?

  • http://positivechurn.blogspot.com Clive Birnie

    Dennis, I take your point. Always saw myself as one of the good rogue 1% who break rules for a reason and are changing the world.

    Found myself stopping in my tracks one time though, when my boss revealed that he saw me as a dangerous hot head!

    But then the next guy I worked for encouraged my wayward tendencies and suggested I asked the CEO for “forgiveness not permission” when on a rule breaking expedition that won a big slug of new business.

    Did I get forgiven? Of course not!

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