Moving towards a structureless organization

In a recent post, I explained the concept of "Structureless". Let's dig a little deeper into how we can explore this concept to build high-performing teams and organizations.

Structural Maturity

Without explaining the above model too much further, let's see how we can use this model in team organization.

Unstructured Organization

It's very easy to set up an unstructured team - basically, all you need to do is: nothing. Even then, people dislike the chaos that ensues and will usually self-organize to create at least some kind of structure. What I see happen as a first step to move away from the total lack of structure is contact lists - people making lists who can be contacted for what.
This is often the first thing people would do when confronted with a new working environment.

Key characteristics:

Complexity	Not clear People try to make ends meet. It's unknown how complex the system really is.
Consistency	Low Nothing is really known. There might be be problems hidden beneath the surface, which aren't even explored. When they surface, the way forward is unclear.
Effectiveness	Low Unstructured organizations are significantly less effective than even the added potential of each.
Problem Solving	Ad hoc Most problems never get addressed. Workarounds are commonplace.
Role Distribution	Ad hoc The best way to describe how roles are distributed is: "Might makes right". People either grab roles they can meet in ways that please people in charge or are assigned a role.
Internal Satisfaction	Low There is constant dissonance between expectation and reality, bursting out in occasional conflict.
Customer Satisfaction	Low The customer is the least problem people would care about.
Next steps	Discover what structures already exist Discover who is responsible for what Make communication paths visible Close communication path gaps Create a "skill matrix" who contributes what

Indirect Structured Organization

Indirect structures solve the problem of not knowing who to address when or for what. The indirect structure tends to rely on bottlenecks, i.e. communication paths that are used more often than they are available. Most organizations never make the leap away from indirect structures, as those are already stable. Moving beyond this indirection means resolving the bottlenecks - and some people use their bottleneck status as safety zone.
Typical bottlenecks are managers who insist on being part of communication chains and irreplacible specialists.

Key characteristics:

Complexity	High Indirections add complexity to even simple requests.
Consistency	Low When indirection chains break, processes or requests might be hanging "mid-air" without being resolved. Major effort is required to maintain consistency.
Effectiveness	Low The bottlenecks inherent to the communication chain reduce the effectiveness of all those who rely on anything provided by a bottleneck.
Problem Solving	Sporadic Problems get addressed when a bottleneck is aware of a problem and has an interest in resolving it.
Role Distribution	Reactive Communication paths typically determine a person's role aligned with their communication network. A person's role is often defined by the bottlenecks which limit their progress.
Internal Satisfaction	Moderate Bottleneck roles tend to have high satisfaction, both from the feeling of being needed and the power at their disposal. Those limited by bottlenecks tend to get frustrated when blocked.
Customer Satisfaction	Low Indirection is a customer's worst nightmare. The complexity of the structure becomes the customer's problem one way or another. Not getting responses, delayed responses and unproportionally high transaction costs are just some symptoms.
Next steps	Discover where the bottlenecks are Address the indirection issues Strengthen direct communication paths Create a "delegation matrix" to relieve the overburden of bottlenecks

Direct Structured Organization

Direct structures emphasize the value of getting things done. They regard results higher than personal affinity and value outcome over process.
Very few organizations make the leap from indirected towards directed structures, and this relies especially on "managers getting out of the way". Direction requires re-thinking the manager role in fundamental ways. The toughest nut an organization needs to crack when moving towards direct structure is Larman's Law #1, the implicit optimization around preservation of personal power.

Key characteristics:

Complexity	Moderate. Indirections add complexity to even simple requests.
Consistency	High. Processes do not rely on single points of failure. Managers/specialists move from being bottlenecks towards creating robust structures that reduce reliance on their involvement.
Effectiveness	High. Centralized structures remove redundancies and optimize for "The Greater Good".
Problem Solving	Systematic. Problems get resolved where they occur, by those who have central control over the domain.
Role Distribution	Planned. Roles are typically created to meet a specific need. Communication paths are then updated to integrate the role properly.
Internal Satisfaction	High. People know what they are doing and where they fit in.
Customer Satisfaction	Moderate. Customers get the impression that people know what they are doing and that their requests move forward. They do not like that the company's structure is their problem - at least to some extent.
Next steps	Simplify request processing from a customer perspective Instill a "customer centric" mindset in those not directly working with customers Identify the communication issues that exist

Structureless Organization

The structureless organization is not to be confused with an unstructured organization. Instead of optimizing for reaching some kind of internal goal, a structureless organization sacrifices internal efficiency for meaningful outcomes. Redundancies are the means by which a structureless organization generate robustness without falling victim to stasis. 

Managers are no longer the joints by which organizational units move, instead they become the glue keeping the construct together.

Specialists move from adding value by executing on their topic towards enabling others to excel in their field.

Key characteristics:

Complexity	Low. From an individual's perspective, complexity may appear to be higher, as each person requires to be in contact with more people. From an organizational perspective, complexity is reduced, because less formal communication is required.
Consistency	High. People are not concerned with structure as much as they are with collaborating to achieve results. Where communication links are missing, "self-repair" will create the most effective new links.
Effectiveness	Extreme. Removing indirection and structural overhead results in maximal effectiveness from an organizational perspective. Decentralization removes the local inefficiency and the need for ineffective compromizes.
Problem Solving	On the fly. Problems get resolved where they occur, by those who are involved in their occurrence. There is no longer a concern for local optimization, as decentralization removes the problem of needing to globally optimize.
Role Distribution	Irrelevant. Roles are simply no longer important, as the focus moves from "job descriptions" towards contribution potential. Even leadership becomes situational to meet specific needs.
Internal Satisfaction	Extreme. People are able to align their personal sense of worth with the company's goals. Motivation and morale become non-issues.
Customer Satisfaction	High. Customers feel that the company is out to please them, and everyone is pulling in the same direction.
Next steps	Be aware of the danger of falling back into old habits Strengthen informal links Continuously improve

Summary

It's not inherently bad to be in any given stage, even if that stage is "unstructured" or "indirect structure". The important pieces of the puzzle are understanding:

1. At which stage you are
2. Why you are there
3. What can you do to move forward
4. Why it's worth moving forward

While I think that it's possible in theory to move directly from unstructured or indirection to structureless, my personal observation has been that this is extremely difficult. I personally like to move towards direct structure in a matter of days or weeks, and enable structureless from there. 

The most important piece of the puzzle is understanding that once we stop with an indirect or direct structure, we create a stable condition where change becomes increasingly difficult as time proceeds.