Leave Your Title at the Door

The Boss Stops Here

New York Magazine

Let’s say you have a coworker who’s disruptive or isn’t pulling his weight. Your company probably has a hierarchical process for deciding the proper course of action, and that process probably doesn’t put you at the center of the matter. But you probably don’t work at Menlo Innovations, where there are no bosses (at least in the traditional sense). Instead, the decision to fire (or hire or promote) someone is based on group consensus. So does this approach — which is also the premise of a new reality show called Does Someone Have to Go? — actually lead to more-productive employees and companies? Matthew Shaer takes a hard look at this question. Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinsky, for example, touts some of hierarchy’s benefits: “It reduces conflict, helps with role differentiation, and vastly increases coordination.” But Menlo and other companies like GitHub, IDEO, and California tomato processor Morning Star have done away with hierarchy and, in some senses, even given employees the (blessed?) burden of running their companies’ day-to-day operations. The article doesn’t outright glorify or condemn these work environments. Instead, Shaer leaves us with food for thought: “It’s possible that the triumph of the flattened office may be the creation of work environments in which leaders organically arise, and all employees feel a sense of ownership, whether real or imagined.”