Hierarchy is not inevitable

I’m on the record in believing that Quality as a process is an inherently progressive one and that when we stray from those progressive roots we become exactly what we strive to avoid. One only has to look at the history of Six Sigma, TQM, and even Lean to see that.

I’m a big proponent of Humanocracy for that very reason.

One cannot read much of business writing without coming across the great leader (or even worse great man) hypothesis, which serves to naturalize power and existing forms of authority. One cannot even escape the continued hagiography of Jack Welch, even though he’s been discredited in many ways for his toxic legacy.

We cannot drive out fear unless we unmask power by revealing its contradictions, hypocrisies, and reliance on violence and coercion. The way we work is a result of human decisions, and thus capable of being remade.

We all have a long way to go here. I, for example, catch myself all the time speaking of leadership in hierarchical ways. One of the current things I am working on is exorcising the term ‘leadership team’ from my vocabulary. It doesn’t serve any real purpose and it fundamentally puts the idea of leadership as a hierarchical entity.

Another thing I am working on is to tackle the thorn of positional authority, the idea that the higher the rank in the organization the more decision-making authority you have. Which is absurd. In every organization, I’ve been in people have positions of authority that cover areas they do not have the education, experience, and training to make decisions in. This is why we need to have clear decision matrixes, establish empowered process owners and drive democratic leadership throughout the organization.