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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 00:54:02 JST Paul Cantrell

   Half-formed thought about biz / org / institutional structure I’m floating to fedi:

   Instead of using hierarchical •over / under• metaphors for talking about managerial structures, use metaphors of •zooming in and out•.

   1/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 00:56:05 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     What do I mean by “over / under metaphors?”

     “Who’s ABOVE them in the org?“
     “at the TOP of the org”
     “UP the reporting chain”
     “a team of 5 people UNDER them”

     etc etc

     2/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 00:59:28 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     This metaphor — and the mental model it implies — has obvious problems: concentrated of wealth & power, fuels income inequality, foments and even encouragees abusive behavior, makes it hard for people “above” to listen and makes it hard for people “below” to deliver bad news / important negative communication, sets up all sorts of bad incentives.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 01:02:45 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Consider, for example, this passage from Michael Lewis’s “The Premonition” in light of the previous post:

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 01:04:05 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     But the above / below metaphor solves some problems too: it’s very difficult for us humans to divide work or understand relationships without a some organizing principles — and a metaphor with which to think about it.

     And org hierarchy does in principle* help solve the problem of aligning power and responsibility. One of those without the other is disastrous.

     *(Aside: I tend to think modern CEOs have more power than responsibility in practice, and that’s a major source of global problems.)

     5/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 01:08:56 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     PAUL’S OFF-THE-CUFF THOUGHT:

     Use a metaphor of zooming in and out, viewing and large and small scale.

     “This job is a WIDE VIEW position”
     “The BIG PICTURE people need to communicate with the CLOSE-UP people in both directions”
     “5 people in the DETAILS of this 1 person’s BIG PICTURE”

     The emphasis is on power/responsibility relationships with •information• and •kinds of decisions•, not between •people•.

     6/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 01:09:44 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     I’m struggling to come up with more language, or think how this turns into practical mechanisms that HR can understand. As promised at the start, this is a half-formed thought.

     I do think there’s something there.

     /end

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 01:11:17 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Coach Pāṇini ®

     @paninid Yes, consciously disrupting the over/under metaphor is thinking along very similar lines!

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     Coach Pāṇini ® (paninid@mastodon.world)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 01:11:18 JST Coach Pāṇini ®

     in reply to

     @inthehands
     Or turn over the org chart: https://www.superversive.co/essays/history-of-the-org-chart

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 01:17:58 JST Paul Cantrell

     • Matthew Lyon

     @mattly
     Exactly, and it’s really important to have people looking at all these different levels of detail, and details about different things, and all believing that the other people’s perspectives provide something important that they don’t have and that’s important to hear.

   • Embed this notice
     Emile Snyder (esnyder@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 03:46:04 JST Emile Snyder

     in reply to

     @inthehands even is situations like FOSS projects, often responsibility for more "zoomed out" issues is tied to more control over the project, which translates to control over participation for folks in more "zoomed in" roles.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 03:46:04 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Emile Snyder

     @esnyder Yes, you’re getting at the heart of the problem. The actual rules and mechanics — and thus institutional power structures — revolve around this over / under model, reifying it in ways we can’t just undo by changing our own mindsets.

     I’m interest in real work on this.

   • Embed this notice
     Emile Snyder (esnyder@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 03:46:05 JST Emile Snyder

     in reply to

     @inthehands I really like your refocus on thinking of it as about the scale at which you are examining things.

     But, one of the reasons the hierarchical view is so persistent is that org structure basically encapsulates hire/fire (and other) power relations.

     What might it look like to have the scale responsibility preserved for different roles w/out the power hierarchy? I'm having trouble imagining it...