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Liberating structure
Traditional management hierarchies emerged in an era when information flowed slowly and decision-making needed to be centralized for efficiency. Today’s world demands something different: Organizations face rapidly shifting markets, distributed knowledge, and unprecedented complexity. The old model of managers directing work and making all key decisions creates bottlenecks and fails to tap into the full potential and intelligence of teams.
You’ll feel the need for this pattern when teams become passive and risk averse, waiting for permission instead of taking initiative. When innovation stalls as good ideas get stuck in approval chains. When engagement drops as capable people feel infantilized by excessive oversight. When resources are wasted on coordination and control instead of value creation.
It’s not just that the old way is worse.
We also deserve something better. A new generation of workers seeks true purpose (1) and autonomy in their work, not just direction from above. They bring skills, insights, and capabilities that often exceed those of their managers in specialized areas. So how can organizations use this distributed expertise while maintaining coherence and alignment?
Deleting management isn’t the answer. distributed management (14) solves for more participation in management tasks, and emergent leadership (58) recognizes that everyone must have a chance to lead. We can go a step further by embedding these ideas in our structure.