The End of Climbing: Careers in a Flat-Hierarchy World

Having a well-established career ladder in your workplace is both a blessing and a curse. Changes in job title, compensation bonuses, or salary increases can create a gamified experience for employees – not entirely unlike a video game. At a corporate job, people can hit milestones and unlock achievements, in much the same way as they’d level up at the end of a game sequence.

Similar companies also tend to come with similar hierarchy and org charts. If not the same, their roles and compensation levels are comparable, which comes in handy when someone at one of these jobs is looking to fill their next role. Hiring managers can take one glance at the job titles on one of these resumés and immediately have a good idea about the candidate’s level of experience, seniority, or salary expectations.

Granted, comparing two people in two different organizations is like comparing apples to oranges, even if they share a job title, but that’s still better than trying to compare two resumés where one person works at a traditional organization and the other within a flat-hierarchy one.

Flattening the Curve

A flat organization emphasizes a more holistic approach to career progression, focusing on personal and professional development rather than on a rigid hierarchy. Contributors will likely experience more autonomy and have plenty of opportunity for skill development, but in terms of job titles or a formal hierarchy, the upward trajectory will be less clear.

The difference between a flat organization and a traditional one may be better explained by looking at how someone’s career might progress in a decade. In a traditional organization, someone may be a junior associate for their first few years and then become a senior contributor around their fourth year on the job. In years seven to ten, they could become a full manager or department head, all the while enjoying salary increases with promotions and performance reviews.

The same person at a flat organization may be a general contributor for the first few years, an autonomous contributor around year four, and then an expert contributor in years seven to ten. Notice how there’s no formal change in their job title, but their responsibilities have grown, and they are involved in increasingly more important projects. Their compensation too is tied to their impact and leadership.

Reinventing the Teal

The promise of a flat org is that by minimizing the traditional top-down structure, there will be fewer levels of middle management. This helps information flow more freely, promoting a collaborative and informed work environment with open and transparent communication.

Doing away with bureaucracy also means fewer gatekeepers. Everyone at the company has more autonomy and more opportunity to get valuable work experience, and people can try themselves out in semi-managerial roles. By fostering a culture of trust, more people have decision-making authority, and without having to wait for top-down decisions, the company as a whole becomes more agile.

In Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness, Frederic Laloux analyzed over fifty companies, grouping them into five categories based on their level of enlightenment. On the bottom rungs are “red” or “amber” companies with low performance and lower employee morale. Laloux found that these companies tend to prioritize order, with formal organizational structures, rules, and clear hierarchies.

Teal organizations, on the other hand, emphasize adaptability, purpose, and the growth of both individuals and the collective. Their organizational structures are more flexible, with less hierarchy and fewer gatekeepers. Whereas an amber company would set top-down production targets, a teal team would leverage the power of distributed intelligence, trusting that teams will act responsibly and make the right decisions.

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A Surgeon Puts Down the Scalpel

Companies are in constant flux. Startups often start out adopting a self-directed approach, but when they grow and scale up, many become more or less “normal”: Their middle-management swells, and they develop increasingly large bureaucracies and hierarchies.

Self-direction is something that an organization can easily lose if it’s not actively promoted and maintained. As companies grow, they need to constantly adjust and shape their management, and work hard to maintain their original values. The biggest thing startups need to do if they want to keep their org structure flat is hire people who are already comfortable working in such an organization.

Choose Your Own Adventure

For someone in the early stages of their career, a flat organization, with its emphasis on skill development, may be a great fit. At a flat-hierarchy company, individuals might find themselves wearing multiple hats, and this diversity of tasks can contribute to a more well-rounded skill set, resulting in employees who are versatile and adaptable.

For someone who’s easily intimidated by having to learn new skills all the time, this may sound like a nightmare. Surely, career decisions are subjective and are dictated by individual circumstances. Situations and priorities change as well – for instance, some things will be more important to a person in the early stages of their career, whereas other things will matter more to someone looking for one of their last gigs before retirement.

People who are concerned with job titles and upward mobility will, after a while, probably be unhappy in a flat organization. And independent spirits who question authority may do badly at a traditional company with rigid hierarchies – and anywhere else where gatekeepers and red tape are a given.

In any structure, understanding what motivates us is crucial for designing the most effective career progression. And similarly, recruiters need to understand these motivations to find the best matches between companies and candidates.