a single centre
Perhaps the greatest challenge of the 21st century is not to build a better pyramid, but to learn to organise the world as a network of people, communities and organisations capable of both independent action and cooperation.
1. The Problem with the Old Model
For thousands of years, we organised societies, institutions and organisations as pyramids. Decision-makers sat at the top, layers of management below them, and the people responsible for carrying out tasks at the very bottom.
This model still operates in most states, public bodies, corporations and many civil society organisations.
The difficulty arises when reality becomes too complex.
In the pyramid model, information has to travel through successive levels of hierarchy. A problem spotted by the person closest to the situation often has a long journey before it reaches someone authorised to make a decision. That decision then travels back down the same route to the people who must act on it.
As a result, the person who understands the problem best is not always able to solve it, while the person making the decision is often furthest from where the problem actually occurs.
The larger the organisation, the greater the risk that decision-making becomes slower, more costly and less flexible.
2. Why It Once Made Sense
The pyramid did not emerge by chance.
For most of human history, access to knowledge was limited. Few people could read and write. Information travelled at the speed of a horse, a ship or a messenger. Communication between regions was slow, and education was available to only a small part of society.
Under these conditions, much of the population had no formal education, no access to knowledge and no opportunity to take an independent part in decision-making. In many ancient and medieval societies, a substantial share of the work was done by enslaved people, serfs or others entirely subject to local elites. Most people were expected above all to follow orders, rather than analyse problems for themselves or help determine the direction of the whole community.
In such a world, hierarchy was a natural solution.
If only a few people held the knowledge, they had to make the decisions. If communication was difficult, a single centre was needed to coordinate action.
The pyramid was therefore more than a way of organising work. It was also a response to the level of education, the availability of information and the social structure of its time.
It helped build cities, states, armies and major infrastructure projects. It made it possible to organise societies on a scale that had previously been impossible.
For centuries, it worked effectively because it fitted the realities of the age.
3. Why It Is No Longer Enough
The world for which the pyramid was designed has all but disappeared.
Today, billions of people have access to knowledge. Information reaches us in seconds. We can learn independently, communicate instantly with the other side of the world and work together regardless of where we live.
Never before have so many people possessed so much knowledge and expertise.
Yet many institutions still operate according to principles created for a time when most people had no formal education and no access to learning or information.
This raises a question: is a model designed for a world of scarce information still the best solution for a world of abundant information?
Increasingly, local staff, communities or experts have the knowledge needed to solve a problem but lack the authority to act. Decisions remain concentrated high in the structure, even though knowledge and problem-solving capabilities are widely distributed.
4. Examples from the World
One of the most remarkable examples of a network model in action is the internet.
The internet has no single global headquarters managing every connection, website or server. Instead, it consists of millions of independent devices, organisations and users operating through shared communication standards.
Its resilience comes precisely from this distribution. The failure of one component does not bring down the entire system.
What is particularly interesting, however, is that contemporary organisations are also beginning to use similar principles.
Buurtzorg – A Network of Self-Managing Nursing Teams
The Dutch organisation Buurtzorg replaced a traditional hierarchy with a network of small, self-managing nursing teams.
Teams of 10–12 nurses organise patient care, plan their schedules and work with doctors and local communities themselves. Many autonomous centres of responsibility take the place of central control.
This model has led to high patient satisfaction and lower operating costs — savings of around 30% compared with traditional models.
Haier – Thousands of Microenterprises Within One Company
The Chinese home-appliance giant Haier transformed a conventional corporation into an ecosystem of more than four thousand microenterprises.
Each unit operates like a small start-up, making its own decisions about products, budgets and collaboration with other teams.
Headquarters does not issue detailed instructions. It establishes shared ground rules, and the teams cooperate on their own initiative.
Gore-Tex – An Organisation Without a Conventional Hierarchy
The company behind Gore-Tex has operated for decades under a model known as a “lattice organisation”.
Employees initiate projects, form teams and make decisions in the areas where they have the most knowledge.
People communicate directly with one another, rather than only through successive layers of management.
Valve – A Network in Place of an Organisation Chart
Valve, the company behind the Steam platform and the game Half-Life, operates without a conventional structure of job positions or a formal management hierarchy.
Employees choose the projects they want to join and the teams they want to work with.
Influence comes primarily from expertise and trust, rather than from a person's position in the organisational structure.
Amazon – A Network of Small, Autonomous Teams
Amazon has long used “two-pizza teams”: teams small enough to be fed with two pizzas, each responsible for particular products or functions.
Each team has considerable autonomy and can make decisions independently, without going through lengthy approval processes.
Instead of one headquarters making every decision, a network of many small centres of responsibility emerges.
Spotify – Squads, Tribes and Guilds
Spotify organised its operations around autonomous product teams known as “squads”.
Teams decide for themselves how to achieve their goals, while “tribes”, “chapters” and “guilds” provide coordination across the network in place of conventional management layers.
This allows the organisation to remain flexible and quick to act despite its size.
Zappos – Holacracy and a Network of Roles
Zappos introduced holacracy, a model in which responsibility is distributed among many autonomous decision-making circles.
A network of roles that can be adapted as needs change takes the place of a rigid structure of job positions.
It is one of the best-known examples of a large company deliberately moving from a pyramid to a network.
Although these organisations operate in different industries and cultures, they share a common pattern.
Decisions are made closer to the problem.
Responsibility is distributed.
Teams have greater autonomy.
And the centre's main role is to establish principles for cooperation, rather than manage every detail of the work.
All these examples show that moving from a pyramid to a network is no longer only a question about the future. Increasingly, it is a question about the present.
5. What Research and Practice Tell Us
A growing body of research and practical experience suggests that complex systems can be managed effectively without full centralisation.
One of the leading researchers in this field was Elinor Ostrom, a Nobel laureate in economics.
Studying communities around the world, she examined how people can manage resources together without placing everything under a single decision-making centre.
Her research showed that polycentric systems — with many cooperating centres of responsibility — can work effectively. Each centre makes decisions about the matters it knows best, while remaining part of a larger whole.
Ostrom demonstrated that such arrangements can be more flexible, more resilient to errors and better suited to local needs than models based solely on central management. [source]
Similar conclusions emerge from the organisations described by Frederic Laloux in Reinventing Organizations.
Laloux observes that many contemporary organisations were designed for a stable, predictable world. Yet their surroundings are becoming increasingly dynamic, and effective organisations are increasingly moving away from rigid hierarchies towards greater autonomy for individuals and teams.
Self-Management
Instead of maintaining an elaborate hierarchy, some organisations give responsibility for decisions directly to the people closest to the problem. Decisions no longer need to pass through multiple levels of approval, allowing a faster response to change and a stronger sense of responsibility.
Wholeness
Traditional organisations often expect people to fulfil only a defined professional role. Laloux describes organisations that try to create an environment where people can bring not only their knowledge and skills, but also their creativity, empathy, life experience and personal perspective.
Evolutionary Purpose
Rather than rigidly following a predetermined plan, the organisation develops alongside its surroundings, responding to emerging needs and opportunities. This makes it more innovative and better able to cope with change.
Interestingly, Ostrom's and Laloux's ideas lead to very similar conclusions. The effectiveness of a complex system need not depend on concentrating all power in one place. It can come from combining autonomy, responsibility, cooperation and a shared purpose.
We see a similar pattern in computing. Modern systems are increasingly moving away from a single large monolith towards many independent components that cooperate through shared standards.
More and more examples therefore suggest that, in a complex world, greater centralisation does not always bring greater effectiveness. Effectiveness often grows with the ability of many autonomous elements to work together.
6. The Essence of the Change
Moving from a pyramid to a network does not mean doing away with leaders, experts or leadership.
It means changing the source of influence.
In a pyramid, influence comes primarily from a person's position in the structure.
In a network, influence comes primarily from expertise, experience, trust and the ability to solve problems.
A network also has rules, roles and responsibilities.
The difference is that decisions are made closer to where a problem arises, rather than only at the top of the hierarchy, where knowledge of the problem is most limited.
The essence of the change is not to replace one set of people with another.
It is to replace a single centre with many cooperating centres of responsibility.
Not an ever-taller pyramid.
But an ever-more-connected network.
If people today can gain knowledge independently, make decisions and work with others around the world, do we still need the pyramid? Why do we continue to organise society as though most people were incapable of doing these things?
