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Slack--available work capacity--is crucial for scaling and for organizational health in general.
People with slack have headspace and time to improve things, to think ahead, to sweep out the corners, to prepare for what's coming next. And they will see these needs before management does.
"Running lean" eliminates slack. This only works for a while, and only if you have a flat org of highly self-actualized people who you give autonomy. And you'll still burn people out eventually.
If you take away both slack and autonomy, (I.e. "running lean" but with a stratified org) you get the worst of both worlds.
Laborers are expected to spend every billable moment working on work defined and prioritized by someone else. They are unable to use their intimate knowledge of the work to improve how things work, to prepare for what's next, to keep things tidy and safe, because none of this has "value" for management.
This is an org that will grind itself to powder before it succeeds.
Eliminating slack is almost inherently anti-autonomy, though. It is management saying they think they know everything that needs to be done, and especially what doesn't.
Except they don't and can't know this. And they don't want to make all of the decisions that they are preventing others from making, either. So everyone is busy, and yet critical work doesn't get done.
Workers all know this, and either burn out or check out.
@cammerman @jenniferplusplus
Lately I’ve been thinking about ways to reframe organizational hierarchy in terms of •scope• rather than •authority•, i.e. who is zoomed out looking at big picture and who is zoomed in on local details, instead of who is the boss of who.
This structurally acknowledges nobody can (or should) have all information. Good orgs already tend this way. I’m sure others are way ahead of me on this line of thought, but I haven’t found the definitive piece on it yet.
@inthehands @cammerman @jenniferplusplus Stafford Beer's "Viable Systems Model" (outlined in _Brain of the Firm_) does this well
@arod @cammerman @jenniferplusplus
“Stafford Beer” got my attention. Will look it up! Thanks
@inthehands @arod @cammerman @jenniferplusplus Stafford Beer was, unironically, one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, and his work is criminally under-studied.