Hierarchies of Competence Vs Control: Insights & Relevance
Have you ever wondered about the difference between hierarchies of competence and control?
And perhaps even more importantly, why does it matter? 💭
Well, let’s delve right into it, shall we? 🕵️
Let me enlighten you with the ins and outs. 🚀
Types of Hierarchies
Let’s start with the Hierarchy of Control, which is typically the traditional organisational structure - the pyramid. The deciders and thinkers are the smaller groups at the top, with the larger group at the bottom being the doers. 🧩
Basically, it’s an It’s a system where everyone’s told what to do.
This means decision-making is a long process of escalation, often leading to delayed and possibly inefficient responses. 📚
On the other hand, we have the Hierarchy of Competence, which is a model where leadership changes based on the task at hand and the competence required for it. This is all about flipping the traditional hierarchy on its head.
In this model, leaders emerge based on their understanding or ability within a particular context. It’s a hierarchy created based on competence, allowing for dynamic changes in leadership as per the task at hand.
Leaders under this hierarchy emerge based on their expertise and capability within a particular context. The hierarchy is more flexible and faster, ensuring the most competent individual is leading at any moment. 💡
Shifting Paradigm
So, why do these Hierarchies Matter Today?
Hierarchies of control worked well during the Industrial Revolution – where slow and steady won the race. The mantra was straightforward - you make the product, customers buy it. Customers weren’t fickle and markets were more localised. But today, with lightning-fast market changes, this decision-making process is too slow. ⌛
The thing about hierarchies of competence is that they respond to the changing dynamics of the market in real-time. They do not enforce a structure but allow the most competent individuals to take the lead in responding to market triggers.
Today, it’s hierarchies of competence that rule the roost. They are much quicker, dynamic, and better equipped to deal with rapid changes and market demands. 🔥
The Organisational Impact
In hierarchies of control, you often see individuals promoted to their level of incompetence. This creates bloated management structures filled with individuals who may not be equipped to perform their duties efficiently. 🌐
Hierarchies of competence, however, create no such enforced structure. Netflix’s model is an excellent example of this, with their dynamic, ad-hoc approach that enables rapid decision-making and strategy execution. 🎯
Path Forward
We must figure out how to move away from the top-down, terroristic waterfall model towards a more competence-driven hierarchy.
We must get closer to the market and establish faster, shorter feedback loops.
Consider transitioning towards a more competence-based hierarchy if your organisation is entrenched in a top-down, waterfall model. It may require a cultural shift, but the benefits will be worth it - a more engaged workforce, a faster feedback loop, and an organisation more attuned to market changes. 💪
Ready to make your organisation more agile and efficient?
Let’s navigate the future of work together.
Well, that’s a great question. What are hierarchies of competence versus hierarchies of control, and why does it matter?
Well, let’s define each one. A hierarchy of control is where everybody’s told what to do, usually, obviously, in a hierarchy, right? Because it’s hierarchies of control. But you’ve got the traditional organisational structure, the pyramid, right? You’ve got the small number of people at the top that are the thinkers, right? The deciders. And then you get the majority of people at the bottom who are the doers, and steering flows down, right?
So, in order for something to be decided, right, there needs to be some kind of trigger that a decision needs to be made. Sometimes that’s just going to come from the top because the person at the top has an idea, and everybody shall follow it, right? Everybody shall do it. But sometimes it’s a market trigger, right? And when it’s a market trigger, this is hierarchies of control. In a market trigger, you’ve got the markets are actually at the bottom. The people talking directly to the markets are not the people at the top; they’re the people at the bottom. They’re talking to the shareholders, right? Which is a different sort of market, but who are talking to your actual market of your customers.
So, there’s some kind of trigger, and it has to be important enough that this person who has no authority whatsoever and maybe doesn’t give a crap, right? Because they’re just doing what they’re told, it has to be painful enough for this person that they filter that up to the next level, right? And then it needs to be painful enough for that person above, i.e. there’s enough people below giving that feedback that they’re like, “Oh, I need to escalate this.” And then it escalates, and it escalates. Escalation is the word to watch out for, right? So, we’re managing by escalation.
You’ve got this item, this problem, escalated up the chain until it gets to somebody who, for want of a better expression, this is how my dad phrased it, you get to somebody who it’s beneath them to deal with your problem, right? And they just say to somebody below them, “Just fix it. I don’t care,” right? Just fix it. Or they just make a decision, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the right or wrong decision; nobody cares. They just make one, right? Because at that level, they’re not connected to the environment.
And so, I worked at Merrill Lynch for a few years before it was bought over by Bank of America. So, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch now. But there were 16 people between me and the CEO. How long do you think it would take in that pyramidal structure for that trigger to get all the way to the top, a decision to be made, and then that to filter all the way down? And remember, it has to be the same message that filters down to the bottom, which is never the case because, you know, politics happens in here as well.
So, that’s hierarchies of control. You’re maximising the amount of time it takes for a signal, a message, to get to the person who needs to act on it, and then for the change to come all the way back down. And that was great when we were in the industrial revolution, right? Where these practices came from. Where, in fact, the mantra is “slow and steady wins the race,” right? Would be the watchword of the day because the customers aren’t changing their mind all the time. The customers aren’t exposed to a hundred different companies doing the same thing and then picking that you’re making the product that they are buying. End of story, right?
Perhaps really, really, really rich people could afford to import a product from somewhere else in the world, but otherwise, it’s all kind of more local industry, right? If you want a ship and you’re a shipping company, you go to your local shipyard in Glasgow if you’re in Glasgow, or perhaps Southampton. But you’re not going to buy a ship from a shipyard in China, right? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. You wouldn’t even know that shipyard existed, right? No marketing, no communications at that level.
So, that’s hierarchies of control. Work great then, but today, with the speed of market change, right? Because there are no static markets anymore, you need this decision process to be much, much quicker.
So, hierarchies of competence are about kind of, I guess, kind of flipping on its head while still having a little bit of hierarchy because, kind of, I believe that there’s definitely a human need for hierarchy, right?
Any time you see a group of people who are challenged to complete some task, whether it’s, “Here’s a pile of ropes and stuff across that river,” right? They’re going to have leaders that emerge based on their understanding or ability within that particular context, right? So, if you gave the same group of people another task, it might be a different leader that emerges based on the context that they’re in. That would be a hierarchy created based on competence.
I choose to secede some of my control over what it is we’re doing to you so that we can all collaborate together to get to the outcome that we desire. And I’m deliberately choosing to secede that control to you because I believe you are the most competent person to do it. And you’ll see in larger groups of people, there might be multiple different competing ideas for how to solve the problem. And perhaps you’ll end up with two groups of people with two leaders that are both trying to solve it in different ways, and then you see which is the better outcome or the quicker outcome, more of the more optimal outcome, right?
And that’s just a natural thing that we do. So, the fundamental difference between hierarchies of control is, in hierarchies of control, you as an individual don’t choose to follow; you are enforced to follow a specific person, even if you think they’re the most incompetent idiot in the world.
And in that model, there’s an expression that you hear a lot, which is “promoted to their level of incompetence.” You heard that expression? That fits perfectly with that model because somebody is seen to be good at doing a job, and then they promote them to the next level up. And maybe the next level up is all about management and has nothing to do with actually doing the same job, and now they’re not good at it. But you never demote people; you only promote people. So then they never get promoted again. So, they’ve been promoted to their level of incompetence. One level down, they’re awesome; this level up, they suck, right?
And so, you end up with these massive management structures and organisations because you’ve promoted this person to the level of incompetence, and oh crap, they’re not actually doing their job. So, we need to find somebody else, so we promote this other person. I know they’re actually good at it, so out of how many people at that level, how many people are actually useful? That’s what hierarchies of control create, some of those structures.
So, in hierarchies of competence, you have no enforced structure in that manner. A good example might be Netflix. I think holocracy, they use some of those ideas where they have a board, which is kind of the enforced hierarchy part. They have a board who sets strategic direction, but everybody in the company’s job is to figure out what can they do to best fulfil that overall strategy, right?
So, that could be, “I’m going to go join this team over here because I like what they’re doing,” or “I’ve got a cool idea, so I’m going to…” What’s it called when you attract people to your position? You know, you’re going to be the leader and attract followers. That’s the one! Attract followers and move in a certain direction.
And that’s all ad hoc and dynamic in that world. So, you can almost go, “Well, that’s all the way over here,” and maybe your company’s not ready for that. We’re all the way over here in this top-down, terroristic waterfall model. You’ve got to figure out what’s the first thing we can do to help move a little bit more in that direction to leverage the people that we have and get closer to the market and have a faster, shorter feedback loop, faster turnaround time between market triggers and actual things happening in our organisation.
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