Hi Reader,

One of the main challenges of self-managing, flat, or bossless organizations is scaling up without ending up with an unwanted hierarchy.

For smaller organizations, it’s relatively easy to work in a self-managed way. Having no functional hierarchy is simply a lot more doable when there are fewer people and less complexity involved.

But when scaling an organization to 30, 50, 100, or even more people, many pioneers lose their cool. Consciously or unconsciously, they end up in a traditional hierarchy.

And to be honest, it’s not all that surprising.

At such a size there’s a need for structure. If you try scaling without one, you’ll very likely end up with either of the following two:

• Chaos: When self-managing organizations scale without a clear structure in place, the result will often be chaos. Employees will be unsure of the desired organizational approaches and behaviors, leading to individual, improvised judgements. Everyone makes their best guess about how to coordinate and cooperate. In all this chaos, there’s often confusion, paralysis, and disengagement.
• Hierarchy in disguise: Another unwanted but common situation pops up when there’s a group that starts to build an informal hierarchy to fight the chaos. This hierarchy in disguise is a “self-managing” organization that has become a hierarchical one without acknowledging it. Because most people are familiar with command-and-control, this way of growing the organization can be successful. But it’s still undesirable since it doesn’t tap into the many benefits of a truly self-managing organization.

Clearly, if you don’t want to end up in chaos or a hierarchy in disguise, you’ll need to create structure.

But (and this is a big ‘but’) the structure should not be based on the things we usually equate with structure:

• Hierarchy
• Bureaucracy
• Control
• Top-down decision-making
• Reporting lines
• Managers

Even though most organizations think otherwise, these types of structures are not the only available options out there.

We’ve met a truckload of pioneers across the globe who have scaled their organizations to a few hundred, a few thousand, or even tens of thousands of people while sticking to their self-managed way of working.

In their case, structure does not equal hierarchy.

We call this structured, non-hierarchical growth – something most people are less familiar with.

To scale, these organizations will leverage a network-of-teams structure and a set of formalized self-managing practices. These practices guide behavior and provide lots of clarity around how work gets done.

Elements that need to be codified:

• Purpose and values
• Organizational structure and coordination
• Roles and responsibilities
• Decision-making
• Operating rhythm & meetings
• Rewards
• Feedback and conflict resolution

These key elements are clarified, explained, and trained to ensure that everyone understands how work is done. The pioneers codify their way of working in the form of a handbook.

If you get these elements right, you’ll be able to enjoy the full benefits of self-management at scale, just like Haier, Buurtzorg, Ner Group, VkusVill, WL Gore, and more.

In our upcoming Masterclass ‘Running and Scaling Self-Managing Organizations” we dive deep into the above-mentioned elements and how pioneering organizations structure them.

The 6-week Masterclass starts in September and we’re currently running a not-to-miss early bird promotion.

​Check out the details of the program and the promotion here.

​

Updates from Corporate Rebels HQ

Here's a quick overview of everything happening at Corporate Rebels:

• Joost and I joined the inaugural meetup of the UK Rebel Cell. It was great to see such a group of diverse pioneers coming together to get their organizations to push the boundaries of new ways of working even more.
• More and more pioneers are joining the various Rebel Cells across the globe. Want to join in your area too? Apply here.
• Lots of proofreaders have given helpful feedback on the manuscript of our upcoming book. We’re currently working through the feedback and adjusting parts here and there to make sure we deliver a book that will shake up the world of work. Stay tuned, we expect to publish in October.
  ​

New article

A new article has been published on our website earlier this week:

• Thriving in Autonomy: Why Self-Management Doesn't Lead to Burnout​
  One question frequently arises when discussing self-managing organizations: Isn't it overly taxing and leading to burnout? The concern is understandable, but also ill-founded. Joost explains why in this week’s blog post. Check it out here.
  ​

What inspired us

Here's something noteworthy we discovered this past week that you’re going to love:

• Epoch’s Self-Management Story: Part 1
  ​Natasha Naderi shared this lovely write-up of a high-tech design and manufacturing firm’s transformation to self-management. The organization has locations in China, India, and the US and has radically reinvented the way they work. Read it here.
  ​

Your weekly challenge

At Corporate Rebels, we believe that small changes lead to big results. That's why we challenge you each week to make a small but significant change. This week....

​

Cheers,

Follow us on:

​​​​

​