Gavin
>I am not much of a fan of hierarchy but after studying Elliot Jaques',
>cognitive theories and applied some of them I have begun to look at MAH 's
>(Managerial accountability Hierarchy) he calls them, in a different light.
>He argues that hierarchy is really linked to cognitive power, a must read
>for anti hierarchy fans. Also Russell Ackoff puts forward the democratic
>hierarchy which also has some merits much like cross functional teams or
>boards that manage at the different levels.
I came across a case study by Georges Romme of a Dutch company where they
had evolved a similar structure to Ackoff's democratic hierarchy.
However, in addition to the managerial hierarchy linking their teams, the
teams elected their own leaders who reported upwards. So effectively they
created two hierarchies, one of managers and a seperate one of leaders,
with an increased communication bandwidth up and down the company.
An interesting innovation that can harness the informal leadership that
exists within work groups and reduce the opportunity managers have to gain
power by controlling information as it flows up and down the company.
Roy Benford
Fulmer, UK
--"Roy Benford" <roy@benford.demon.co.uk>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>