Network: Gateway to extraordinary performance
Wikipedia, Zappos, LEGO or Linux. These are examples of organizations that got rid of traditional hierarchies and enjoy taking advantage of the potential offered by peer-to-peer networks.
However, let’s see how hierarchy kicks in when the network doesn’t work, using Wikipedia as an example. At Wikipedia hundreds of thousands of contributors are organising themselves within the frame of a peer-to-peer network.
How Wikipedia does it
Almost all content of the site is prepared and supervised by 300,000 active editors. They write articles themselves and edit articles written by other users. However, there are still some issues or conflicts that cannot be solved by a consensus among the editors.
This is the point at which one of a group of 1,300 administrators steps in. Editors with this role are recruited from highly active users. They must also go through a review process, during which they are being evaluated by the community. Administrators resolve editorial disputes and can delete or close individual pages. Above these administrators are top administrators, who act as judges and can add new administrators.
However, these roles, hierarchical in nature, are used only in rare situations when the network of peers cannot arrive at a solution to a problem.
Future of hierarchies
Self-organised network structures can utilise the power of collective intelligence. However, this does not mean hierarchies are doomed, according to an article on the management-issues.com website.
They will remain necessary, though not as part of the basic organisational structure: instead, they will be merely a useful solution for the rare instances when a workable consensus cannot be achieved.
-jk-