“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
— Henry Ford
What Henry Ford said remind us of the teamwork’s importance: teamwork is indispensable in defining the success of any business.
In a traditional organization with tall (also refer to “vertical” or “hierarchical”) structure, when people mention “teamwork”, they often relate to “leadership”. Indeed, the leaders, as the star in a team, always plays a very important role in defining the term of a “good teamwork”: they bring the team together, allocating works between different team members efficiently, solving the conflict within the team, and finally guiding the whole team towards success.
However, the increasing demand of interconnection requires more efficient and effective communication, and the different redundant levels of middle management in the traditional hierarchical organizational structure seems to impose barrier in the information flow. Therefore, the flat organizational structure comes into place.
What is a flat Organization?
A flat organization, compared with the hierarchical organization, cuts down the levels of middle management between the top management and the staff level employees. In flat organizational structures, employees are more empowered, operated with a greater degree of managerial independence and are expected to take responsibility for a range of traditionally managerial decisions in their daily routines.
Without a powerful middle management that can lead the team, is the good teamwork still achievable is a flat Organization?
Of course yes!
Unlike the traditional hierarchical organizational structure where the importance of leadership is always emphasized, the flat organizational structure focuses more on fairness, which should be the fundamental requirement for fluent information flow. The following paragraphs will talk about how to achieve a successful teamwork through 3 aspects: followership, leadership, and collaboration.
Followership
In the flat organization, since there are no longer “supervisors” who are responsible to closely monitor you in the daily works, the employees are assumed to be more self-disciplined, self-motivated, and shoulder more responsibility than before. The title “team member” is no longer an excuse to allow you hiding behind your leader. You should not always rely on the leaders, waiting for them to assign new jobs to you. You should be more proactive. You can look for the tasks that may be helpful for your career and the organization by yourself. Please keep in mind that you are no longer “child” who need to be taken care of by others. You need to be responsible for every decision you make.
Also, the flat structure empowers you with the ability to argue with your leader when you think they are wrong. Instead of following (even though it is called “followership”), you should support your leaders by providing valuable suggestions with valid reasons.
Leadership
In the flat organization, without the numerous layers of management, the role of leader may not be as crucial as before. However, it does not mean the leadership is useless in the flat structure.
In the flat organization, the leader is more like a coordinator: you still need to guide the team by showing the direction they need to follow and gathering their joint effort in the right spirit, and make sure that everything is on track, but never like a mother who needs to take care of everything. Since the other team members are now taking more responsibility and supposed to be more empowered and self-motivated than before, the leader may not be the sole accountable person for the success and the failure. At the same time, the title “leader” may not automatically grant you the power to order other teammates to follow your instruction. In fact, you need to “win” the position and respect as a team leader with your excellent communication, time management skills. In addition, when someone question your decision, please do not see it as a challenge to your power. Sit down and discuss together is one of the best ways to solve problems.
Collaboration between team members
One of the advantages the flat organizations have over the traditional hierarchical companies is that the communication is more efficient and effective. You may establish a closer relationship with co-workers and exchange your ideas with them more frequently, no matter what position your co-workers are holding. The job position and title only reflect the area of expertise and the year of experiences (e.g. senior data scientist may indicate you have more experiences in the field of data science and may know how to deal with similar issues), but not imply that you must listen to those whose position is higher than yours.
At the same time, please keep in mind that every team member has equal opportunity to express themselves. Even though you may have different opinions or conflicted argument with your teammates, please express your thought gently and respect every idea that may be different from yours. The fairness is the key to successful teamwork.
Flat organizational structure is now more and more popular, especially in the startup. Therefore, how to achieve good teamwork in the absence of a powerful leader is now crucial to the organization’s success.
