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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Why Hierarchies Thrive | Harvard Business Review, March 2003. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Why Hierarchies Thrive | Harvard Business Review, March 2003
by Jeremy at 6:07 pm EST, Mar 16, 2003

Hardly anyone has a good word to say about hierarchies.

They routinely transform motivated and loyal employees into disaffected Dilberts. Yet, the intensity with which we struggle against hierarchies only serves to highlight their durability.

In this article, organizational behavior expert Harold J. Leavitt presents neither a defense of human hierarchies nor another attack on them. Instead, he offers a reality check, a reminder that hierarchy remains the basic structure of most, if not all, large, ongoing human organizations. That's because although they are often depicted as being out of date, hierarchies have proved to be extraordinarily adaptive.

Over the past 50 years, for example, they have co-opted the three major managerial movements--human relations, analytic management, and communities of practice. Hierarchies also persist because they deliver real practical and psychological value, and they fulfill our deep need for order and security.

Despite the good they may do, however, hierarchies are inevitably authoritarian.

You can find the print edition of HBR at your local bookstore or newsstand.


 
 
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