Re-imagining Hierarchy

Hierarchy is Dead! Long Live Hierarchy - Part 2

There’s a debate about hierarchy in movement organizations. Some say hierarchy is oppressive and destructive, some say hierarchy is necessary and effective. Both are correct. The key is to have a nuanced understanding of the complexity of hierarchy so that we can intentionally employ the effective and necessary aspects of hierarchy without reproducing systems of oppression and dominance.

In our last installment, we established that hierarchy is simply a system in which certain members or components of a group defer to the authority of other members/components.

We want to redeem hierarchy–not the bureaucratic, coercive notion of hierarchy–but interdependent hierarchy as a process of deference that enables coordination, alignment, and unity. 

We’ve found five types of interdependent hierarchies that are necessary for groups to work together effectively–four formal types, and a fifth essential, informal type. We say “formal hierarchies” to emphasize that these are arrangements that we can intentionally design and expressly adopt as part of an organizational structure. We also use “formal” to differentiate these types of hierarchy from the numerous unspoken and informal hierarchies based on things like social status, race, class, gender, access to information, expertise, etc. that influence how, when, why, and to whom we defer. While it is essential to address these types of informal hierarchies, they are not our focus in this series.

Our focus is on four formal types, (1) Tactical, (2) Strategic, (3) Policy, and (4) Livelihood, and a fifth, informal type, Culture. 

We’ve witnessed the debate around hierarchy in movement organizations escalate into conflict. We’ve also witnessed clarity and intentionality around the above five types of hierarchy resolve these conflicts. 

One very clear example transpired at a bakery. 

The Baker Splits the Muffin

On the floor of a cooperatively owned and operated bakery, during the lunch rush, someone tipped over a cart full of muffins and batter. Suddenly the team needed to both come up with more muffins to fill the order that a customer was expecting to pick up imminently and clean up the mess all while they were already operating at full capacity. The Shift Lead quickly gathered the crew, assigned tasks, and instructed everyone to get to work. At that moment, a Baker said they didn’t like the Staff Lead’s use of hierarchical power, questioned why he was the Shift Lead to begin with, and noted some dynamics of race and gender at play.

It may sound a bit trivial, but this story reveals a lot about hierarchy and the conflict that often arises from misaligned analysis of hierarchy. The Baker’s concerns were real and valid. The organization was trying to work on the intersectional dynamics the Baker named, that’s why we were involved to begin with. At the same time, if the whole team had paused to process those dynamics, maybe even if they had paused to try to mindfully make a collective decision about how to redistribute their labor, they would have fallen farther behind on their mission, the muffins would still be on the floor, disappointing muffin lovers everywhere.

The Bakery wanted to attune to power, belonging, and justice and they needed to get that floor clean and those muffins baked fast. One person tried to use hierarchy to coordinate the activity, another resisted hierarchy. The coordination was needed, the resistance revealed valid concerns. In a way the organization needed to both use hierarchy and critique it at the same time.

When we understand formal hierarchy not as a monolithic thing to be dismantled, but rather a system that can enable coordination around a group’s tactics, strategy, policy, livelihood, and culture, then we can access the precision and discernment needed to dismantle oppressive hierarchies while creating liberating, interdependent hierarchies.

Re-imagining Hierarchy

This series will describe each of our five types of interdependent hierarchies and provide practical advice on how to use them intentionally in your organizations. We’ll begin with the formal types of hierarchy, beginning with Tactical. 

Tactical Hierarchy

Tactical hierarchy is a system in which members of the group defer to another’s direction about who will complete which tasks in order to accomplish a shared and already defined goal.

This is the kind of hierarchy that the Shift Lead was trying to use during the spilled muffin crisis.

The primary benefits of tactical hierarchy are clarity and quickness. It becomes clear who is doing what, and if it is not clear, it is at least clear who to ask to get clarity. This helps people understand what they need to do in order to get the job done. The fact that a single person can make the decisions enables the group to avoid all of the time that would be spent negotiating or waiting for volunteers.

Of course, no tool or practice is perfect and there are potential pitfalls to tactical hierarchy, including overwhelm, disempowering delegation, and sub-optimal decisions. The person the group defers to for tactical decisions might end up with too many things to keep track of and become overwhelmed by what they have to manage. They might assign people to tasks that aren’t properly matched with their capacities and interests, and that might leave people unseen, without opportunities for growth, or even feeling demeaned. And all the decisions they make will not be fully informed by the wisdom of the group, which could result in unforeseen collateral consequences.

And yet, the truth remains that groups need efficient and transparent ways to delegate tasks. With nuanced analysis of hierarchy and intentional practices, groups can gain the benefits of formal tactical hierarchy and avoid the potential pitfalls. 

Strategic Hierarchy

Strategic hierarchy is a system in which some members of the group defer to another’s direction about the group’s shared mission and goals, the general initiatives that will be undertaken and their intended outcomes. 

This is the hierarchy that aligned everyone at the Bakery around the goal of selling muffins to customers. The goal was set well before the muffins spilled. It was set by a group of people different from the bakers (though in this case some bakers participated in that strategic conversation, more on that later), and everyone who chose to work at the Bakery deferred to the group that made the decision and agreed to pursue the goal.

The primary benefits of strategic hierarchy are direction, cohesion, and stability. Deference to a strategy enables the group to orient to shared goals and build structures and processes that enable them to work together to accomplish the goals. The continued deference to that strategy enables folks to invest in their work without fear that priorities and activities will shift rapidly. Without a strategic hierarchy, half the bakers might start making cookies while the marketing team decided to pivot to pizza.

The potential pitfalls of strategic hierarchy are divestment of collaborators, sub-optimal strategy, and rigidity. If decisions about goals and priorities are made by people other than those who will actually be doing the work to achieve those goals, the person responsible for doing the work might feel less personally invested, less likely to bring their inspired creativity, and more likely to feel unappreciated and disconnected. Similarly, if the process of setting the strategy does not incorporate the right types of diversity and expertise (especially wisdom of frontline communities and expertise developed through lived experience), it can lead to activities that fail to maximize the group’s impact or even cause harm by perpetuating oppressive dynamics. When strategy becomes inflexible whether because it is either too ingrained in the group’s operations or the person/people at top of the strategy hierarchy are overly attached to their decisions, the organization can be locked into misaligned activities. This often happens when the feedback of people who are either charged with implementing strategy or directly impacted by decisions is not incorporated at the top of the strategic hierarchy.

Harmonize helps organizations build resilient structures that retain the aspects of hierarchy that are necessary to create efficiency and transparency and also build policies and practices that proactively protect against and navigate potential pitfalls

Join us for our next installment where we’ll discuss Policy, Livelihood, and Culture hierarchy.