Most leaders like me have grown up in hierarchical corporate structures. Heritage from the last century. Monoliths, growing bigger and bigger, loosing speed and agility with every growth step they take.
But there is an emerging alternative to the hierarchical option: highly decentralized corporations. I have been working for one in my last years before retirement. It was my responsibility to transform the culture of the recently acquired Austrian company from a hierarchical background to a decentralized network.
These were the most rewarding and most successful years of my 43 years lasting career. It was the perfect fit for my personality and my skills. It’s a very different approach to entrepreneurship and leadership. I owe a lot of the person I am now, the learnings I have made and the success we have achieved to this decentralized culture.
The global corporation I am talking about is organized by many small autonomous business units, which are grouped by local entities. Autonomous means the business unit leaders have full responsibility for profit & loss, portfolio, budget, strategy and market.
Autonomy does not mean independence. The individual business units share a common culture and work together in a network, sharing knowledge and experience, learning from each other and cooperating in projects when it is in their interest.
When a new business idea comes up somewhere, it‘s up to the local leaders to establish a new business unit. With people from inside or outside who believe in making their idea a success. Innovation lived. Startup mentality within the same organization. No need for a Chief Digital Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, Innovation Lab, Startup Daughter Company ... All you need are the right culture and empowered employees energized by an inspirational, creative environment.
A big hierarchical organization needs a lot of rules and processes making it slow and ineffective in responding to an increasingly fast changing environment. A swarm of autonomous business units needs a strong shared culture and a small set of shared values: autonomy, trust, responsibility, entrepreneurship and solidarity.
No big tanker can adopt so quickly to a changing environment than a swarm of autonomous business units. Having experienced both world I am convinced, this is a superior design for a VUCA world.
Book recommendation: „Die Orbit-Organisation. In 9 Schritten zum Unternehmensmodell für die digitale Zukunft.“ - Anne M. Schüller, Alex T. Steffen.
Snapcard: on Instagram @love.lead.create
Next week‘s post: Der Oktopus.
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