Hobgoblin 1 argues “you need a hierarchy”

Like all of the hobgoblins, this one sounds oh-so-reasonable.  As the business grows, you need more employees, and you have to define their responsibilities clearly.  You need a hierarchy, and the obvious starting point is your organisation chart.

To you, the organisation chart looks like a model of clarity. But to your employees, it induces anxiety and fear.  They can see it all mapped out: the divisions, the silos, the pyramid of power.

Employees in hierarchies become nervous around senior managers. They’re fine until they have to speak to a boss, then they become tongue-tied and awkward. And it can also work the other way round; some senior managers are uncomfortable admitting to junior employees that they don’t know everything. Furthermore, people don’t work well across functional lines. Divisions become defensive. So increasingly people stay in small circles, in mini-tribes.

An HR director of a pet-food company told me about an experience that haunted him. They launched a new dog-food recipe into the market. The R&D team had made the recipe tastier but also more satiating. A junior R&D employee was concerned about this, but was too intimidated by her boss to speak up. Of course, dogs ate less of the food, so their owners bought less, or even switched brands. For the lack of one simple conversation, the company suffered a huge loss of revenue.

The answer is simple – without being at all easy…