36. Five Problems that Hierarchical Structures Face

Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change the Workplace with myself Prino Shah. I love what I do. I'm a global leadership coach, a consultant, a trainer, a keynote speaker, a podcaster. I help you to develop your leaders, your teams, and I help you to optimize your organizational cultures. I'm here to help you find ways to change your workplace. Why? Because we spend more time in our waking day at work than we do with our loved ones. It has to be a good place to be. So in this podcast, you can expect a mix of interviews with amazing thought leaders and then some solo episodes from myself as well. Get ready. Five problems with hierarchical structures is what I want to talk to you about today. So, to begin with, what is a hierarchical structure? According to the definition of a hierarchical structure, it is a system in which members of an organization are ranked according to relative status or authority. Where an organization has many layers of employees. For example, you've got the executive layer, you've got the general manager layer, you've got the senior manager layer, you've got the middle manager layer, you've got the emerging leaders layer, you've got the specialists layer, and then you've got the rest. That's a hierarchy. Generally speaking, that's what it is. So you get the gist. And you know what types of institutions have hierarchies? There are so many around us if you look. Corporations, obviously, workplaces, but then there's religious institutions. The Vatican comes to mind with the Pope at the helm. Schools and universities, tertiary institutions are very hierarchical. And then there's so many more. I ask you to consider looking around today and see what hierarchies you pick up throughout your day after listening to this podcast. So I'm going to get into the issues with hierarchies now. Issue number one. I feel that hierarchies create a leadership pecking order that in effect causes your leaders to negatively compete with each other. I'll say that again. Hierarchies create a leadership pecking order that in effect causes your leaders to negatively compete with each other. That's the first issue that I want to talk to. And I want to talk to an example here. There's a wonderful TED talk by Margaret Heffernan and she talks about the pecking order within organizations. Now, Margaret Heffernan's TED Talk and her idea is based off research conducted by Purdue University, where scientists set out to build a flock of successful chickens by selectively breeding the best of the flock. It's a really interesting experiment. And what should have amounted to a breed of super successful chickens turned out to be a lesson in the world around us. So these super chickens which were being bred, the super chicken flock, ended up with only three living birds. Because the unfortunate result of the chickens living with each other and creating this super race of chickens is that the chickens ended up killing each other off. While the original average flock ended up thriving plump and healthy. The lead crop ended up killing each other and only a few survived. So it turned out that the success of the super chickens was only found by eliminating the competition and not by working together. And that was the super chickens' downfall. I'm gonna link to Margaret Heffernan's TED Talk if you haven't listened to it, you really have to check it out. Because it really talks to the issue number one that I'm talking to, in that hierarchies create a leadership pecking order that in effect causes your leaders to negatively compete with each other. And we don't want that. That's creating a toxic culture of leadership. Issue number two. People conform without questioning, like a herd of sheep when it comes to a hierarchy. Issue number two is that people conform without questioning, like a herd of sheep in a hierarchy. So there's an experiment by a social psychologist called Milgram, where he tested people and he gave certain members of society positional power and others not so. And the people with positional powers in this experiment that Milgram did were allowed within their role to press a buzzer which electrocuted the other. What turned out is that the other accepted all of the electric shocks in the end because they complied to this hierarchical positional power of the person pressing the buzzer on the other side of the room. Now, what that really talks to is the fact that these people had a chance to escape. They had a chance to get out. However, even within the confines of a social psychological experiment, people tend to comply. So the issue number two with hierarchies that I really want to talk to is that people can form without questioning, like a herd of sheep. What's the problem with that? The problem with that is that you're giving undue positional power to people who may not deserve it. They may then therefore take advantage. There's other elements to this which are issues as well. This is anti-psychological safety. We're not creating a great workplace if we conform without questioning. It's anti-autonomy as well. We won't be able to work in the manner that we want to because of the fact that we're conforming without questioning. And it's anti-empowerment, you're not empowering your workforce if your workforce are conforming without questioning. We want open minds. So consider whether your organizational culture has an issue of people conforming without questioning. Is that the case at your workplace? Issue number three that I want to talk to is entitlement cultures where people expect the next role to be their God-given right. So I'll say that again. These are entitlement cultures in a hierarchy where people expect the next role to be their God-given right. Or else, you know. So the issue with that is these entitlement cultures create a culture of promotion. So I will deserve the promotion because it's the obvious next step. The antidote to that is uncertainty. Truth is that none of our roles are certain, none of our places in society really are certain as well. And when we come to become entitled in our roles, there's not only a problem here that is of certainty that you feel that the role is yours, but certainty often breeds more insecurity. So think about that. Certainty often breeds more insecurity because you feel that that role is your God-given right and it's gonna happen next, and that's all people hold on to. So, what I want to ask you in your hierarchy with issue number three that I'm highlighting, do you have an entitlement culture where people expect the next role to be their God-given right? Issue number four I want to talk to. And these are cases of corporate fraud which go unseen. And this happens so much. So there's inappropriate behavior such as fraud. The larger the hierarchy, the easier it is not to be seen. The number of fraud cases that I have come across just here within Perth where I live, in large organizations where people weren't seen for years, has been quite interesting. And that results in a painful delegation and protection of processes where everyone else has to suffer due to the hands of a few who have done the fraud. So I'm going to talk to an example here. I live in Perth and within the government sector there's been a couple of fraud cases. One big one in around 2020, around then, or maybe a year or so before. So this is the Western Australian public sector, and there was a fraud case in the Department of Communities. I won't go into the detail of that, but I will put I will put details of it in the show notes. Now, the thing I really want to talk to is that after this case of fraud happened, what the Public Sector Commission of Western Australia did, that's the body that looks after all of Western Australia's government entities, is they sent out a blanket approach, blanket um demand to all of the agencies that sit within their hierarchy to train everyone on accountable and ethical decision making. That was one of the first things that came off their plans after this case of fraud happened at the Department of Communities. Now I just want to stop and ask organizations to think about these kind of knee-jerk reactions that they respond in, because that kind of knee-jerk reaction of asking every single public servant to do accountable and ethical decision-making training, everybody felt punished. It was a waste of time. And let's just say, most of the time, that training is dull as anything. So if you're actually going to address the issue of fraud, address the issue of fraud instead of offering a blanket approach to every single person who hasn't committed that fraud and actually punishing them. And the last issue that I want to talk to, I'm calling it issue number five, constipated organizations when it comes to decision making. I'll say that again. So indecision resulting in missing the moment. Too many chefs and not enough cooks is what often happens in large hierarchical organizations. So most hierarchical organizations have a constipated way of making decisions. One manager I used to work with said that. By that she meant that decisions were made, they were sent to the heads for their sign-off, and then sat in the inboxes for weeks upon weeks, and by that time the issues at hand either had moved on or had become worse. That impact on your teams who've been busting the proverbial balls to get the job done, or for it to result in a void of silence is demoralizing. So constipated organizations when it comes to decision making in a hierarchical sense are an issue. I'm gonna read all of these issues with hierarchical organizations that I just talked to. So issue number one with the hierarchical organization, I find, is that hierarchies create a leadership backing order that in effect causes your leaders to negatively compete with each other. Issue number two, people conform without questioning, like a herd of sheep. Issue number three, entitlement cultures where people expect the next role to be their God-given right or else. Cases of corporate fraud which go unseen, and then when you do find out about them, everyone else is painted with that same paintbrush and have to be punished as a result of someone else's mistake. And then issue number five with hierarchical organizations is that organizations are constipated when it comes to decision making. Is this the case for you? If any of this relates, then you need to share this episode with whoever needs to listen to it first off. But I don't want to leave you just there. So what can you do? I recommend that you review your organization to see if is your leadership pecking order in effect causing your leaders to negatively compete with each other? Has your organization got a command and control style like the Milgram experiment? Do people conform without questioning like a herd of sheep? Is yours an entitlement culture what people expect the next role to be their God-given right? What is that creating? What kind of culture are you creating? What kind of issues are you creating with that kind of expectation in your hierarchical workplace? Has your organization had cases of corporate fraud which went unseen for a while? And then how was it managed when it was found out that there were corporate uh fraud cases? And is your organization constipated when it comes to decision making? That is the last question I'm gonna leave you with. So I have supported organizations with all of these five issues on helping them to optimize their organizational cultures. If you want to learn more, reach out to me. My contact details are in the show notes, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. If this episode resonated with you, you're also going to like a few other episodes. You must tune in to episode number 17. That's a solo episode where I ask you seven tough questions to ask about your leadership culture. Episode number five is called How to Recover Your Internal Culture After a Workplace Scandal. And that's with Elaine Bennett, who has managed a very big scandal, and she shares all of the work that she did in how to manage the internal culture after this workplace scandal happened. And episode number 20, how to create a thriving hybrid culture with the guru, the global guru of all things hybrid, Mr. Gustavo Rosetti. Tune in and I'll see you in the next episode. I'll see you there, and I'm looking forward to you tuning in to the next episode. Ciao for now.