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Hierarchy vs Wirearchy ? Or only complementarity ?
Category: HR & Management 2.0, Organization & Management, enterprise 2.0Wirearchy is a very interesting concept I discovered weeks ago from a post from John Husband. Not that new (he’s been talking about that for a long time) but interesting enough to dig further.
Facts are obvious : new tools allow a new kind of information flows, because they’ree generated by peope. Those flows allow new kind of interactions, outside what’s been built by the organization, what creates an informal organisation. Not a counter organisation, but an actual and informal one which permanency only depends on people’s needs.
Beyond the concept, what is interesting is how it can materalize. We know companies used to work as social networks for ages but in limited human perimeters. Social software allows this perimeter to grow, even becoming enterprise wide. And since we’re talking about tools we can go further : analyzing those networks in order to know how the enterprise really works and identify which kind of interactions have to be facilitated.
What prevails in such relations is the need for being more efficient by connecting people, informations and expertises, the ones through the others. So, preventing those networks to express themselves would be stupid. What would be useful would be to use them to understant what makes connections easier and and how to improve formal organization. In this purpose an organigraph will improve the traditionnal organizational chart (and not replace it !).
Companies seems to be afraid of this new kind of informal organization, although I’m convinced it’s compatible with the present formal structure. Perhaps this kind of approach may make them feel more comfortable :
• Because hierachy is a command and responsability chain and has nothing to do with the way people work. Perhaps it’s on the only point on which I may disagree with Husban who thinks hierarchies don’t have to remain static. In my opinion that doesn’t make any difficulty since hierarchy is about command and responsability and wirearchy is about work : both are complementary.
[Paragrapg edited after John's comment : when I wrote his post I didn't know if he meant organization will have to be both horizontal and vertical or horizontal only...]
• Because those practices may (must ?) take place on a defined process framework (which don’t prevent from cleaning up some process if needed
Tags: enterprise 2.0 , hierarchy , informal-networks , organigraph , organisation-chart , process , social networks , wirearchy
I’m not sure I’ve ever said hierarchies can’t remain static .. of course they can, and sometimes do. I may have said “hierarchies can’t remain static”, and I’ll look for where I said it. But I doubt it.
What I am more sure I have said is that the work organizations do, and the challenges to which they respond, do not remain static, and that it would be very useful for executives / managers everywhere to be able to understand AND choose when (and why) a centralized hierarchy and command-and-control are the most useful structure and dynamics, and when (and why) a decentralized network and “champion-coordinate-negotiate-and-feedback” are the most useful structure and dynamics.
The point of a hyperlinked digital infrastructure for organizations doing work is that both are possible, and simultaneously, and that some kinds of work are better carried out and managed in a hierarchy, and others in a network (wirearchy), but that it can be “both / and” .. and I believe that managers everywhere will eventually need to be able to identify, create, and (participate in managing effectively) both types of structures. I say “participate in managing effectively” because I think that there’s a lot of negotiation and “self-management” by working groups where the members are working in a network,
@John : sorry, I didn’t write what I meant…that’s what happen when you write late at night, in a foreign language, being jetlagged.
You actually said “don’t have to remain static”. As you explained in your comment you mean both vertical and horizontal what I think is relevant.
But it seems that so many people think horizontal is the only solution that I wondered if when writing “dont have” you meant “both” or “horizontal only”. I think that the all horizontal can be as harmful as the all vertical approach.
Whatever, I find your “wirearchy” concept very relevant, furthermore in a kind of organization I hope and pray for : the Service Oriented Organization which would be the organizational equivalent of SOA. I think I’ll explore this idea further in the coming weeks.
Yes. It’s a “both / and” thing. The Internet permits both centralization and decentralization, simultaneously.
A “Service-Oriented Organization” would be able to use that “both / and” aspect to its advantage, I am sure.
@John : Perhaps will find some time to talk about that at Webcom !