I worked at this one hierarchical software firm. It had a massive, seemingly never ending upwards hierarchy. I could never figure out who managed what, or who was who's manager. The advantage to a self-organizing company is that a lot of this complexity/inefficiency isn't there.
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One large hierarchical firm scales up by taking a pre-designed Company Office Template and just stamping it out all over the world. New offices can form up around existing small teams that are acquired.
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The satellite offices at these companies can have very different cultures. One office I nicknamed "The Pirate Ship". The workers hated their managers here, and were threatening to walk at any moment. They were particularly mad about the lack of office space.
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I treated one rigid hierarchical firm like I was at a self-organizing company. I just optimized to Get Something Done. It was hilarious, as I broke every rule in the book to get this one important thing accomplished. I was near the "top" outside the manager hierarchy so it worked
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But I did piss off a bunch of people because I didn't follow the Rigid Hierarchical Company Protocol. Only the CEO was allowed to do those things. Amazingly, at a self-organized company you have many of the powers of a CEO.
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At huge hierarchical firms execs and high-level managers are basically like Corporate Gods. They have Official Powers. Leaf-node workers are beneath them. They can talk differently and strangely, and only associate with other Corporate Gods. They are a different breed of worker.
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When I was younger at one ~100 person hierarchical company I was a leaf-node worker. One day my manager said "Keep quiet and let's go to an offsite. Tell no one else." I was utterly amazed as this meeting was unlike any other I had seen. Managers were yelling at each other.
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And so I learned, the manager hierarchy behaves differently when only among themselves. They treat the leafy workers differently, and there are tons of official secrets. It's a very secretive, elite club.
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The managers at large hierarchical firms and execs have lots of secret offsites. The managers get special offsite Manager Training as well. Whenever you interact with these people, how they treat you will depend on whether you're in the Club or not.
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