Going Horizontal: Creating a Non-Hierarchical Organization, One Practice at a Time

by Samantha Slade

Hierarchy in organizations is obsolete. There is a better one that increases the engagement of employees and managers alike, reduces micromanaging and other limiting approaches, and promotes organizational and individual success.

In this book, self-management expert Samantha Slade presents seven concrete practices to help your organization flatten its existing hierarchy and develop a horizontal organization. The result will be enhanced creativity, greater growth, and a increased employee retention and productivity--and a better bottom line.

These days, more than ever, successful organizations must respond quickly and nimbly to change--they need every employee's best thinking. A horizontal organization creates an environment of true collaboration, respect, and openness. It allows everyone more freedom to express unconventional ideas or to work through issues that are getting in the way of organizational goals. And it's a more human way to organize--after all, we function perfectly well in our day-to day lives without someone telling us what to do.

But when an organization decides to go horizontal, it can be overwhelming for both managers and employees. Slade offers a practical, proven, incremental method to help organizations of all kinds and sizes ease in to a non-hierarchical model. She includes techniques for using your organization's purpose to stay focused and aligned, developing shared decision-making, creating a mutual feedback culture, nurturing autonomy, holding co-managed meetings, and maintaining an environment of collective learning.

Going Horizontal will help organizations become more adaptive, collaborative and innovative, which is vital in today's highly competitive and constantly-evolving world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Management, Leadership, Business

256 pages, Paperback

Published November 27, 2018

Reviews

[Martti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Human nature is non-hierarchical. Like geese flying south and bears hibernating, we are a self-organizing species. We function every day without a boss. We feed ourselves, keep up our homes, care for each other, plan big projects, celibrate victories and mourn losses. We figure things out together. Most of the time we appreciate the input and support. There is no chain of command in the daily life.

Hierarchy in organizations is obsolete. There is a better way: one that increases the engagement of employees and managers alike, reduces micromanaging and other limiting approaches, and promotes organizational and individual success.

Review org meeting culture. Why not have a voluntary attendence? Participants themselves decide if it's a useful meeting for them or not. Also works as a vote of (no-)confidence. Or people need to attend at least virtually and read the meeting notes. Do you even have meeting notes? Co-manage the meeting, everybody has a turn documenting the notes and fascilitating the meeting. Notes are obviously online, not locked in a single computer or in a proprietary format. Change seating arrangements to shake up the "hierarchy" in the meeting. Have an agenda.

Default to openness, share. Make it easy to others (to view, edit, share).

Descision making. There is some clever "procedures" here. When giving away protocol and top-level descision making bottleneck. A leader needs to ask herself "is there anything I cannot live with" - ask only for concrete objections. Asking for "yay" from everybody is not needed if concent is the default anyway. Spending time listening to everybody specifically why they agree with a sensible proposal is a pointless waste of time. Too many people like to talk. Facilitator can look through objections and proposals, address everybody's concerns and possibly change the proposal.

Resource page as a companion to the book.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written and thorough, this book is really practical. Highly recommended for anyone looking to build a more horizontal organization and anyone struggling to explain why the culture around them feels like a mismatch between their expectation (especially coming out of a hiring process) and the reality of hierarchical management. This is also somewhat helpful in terms of creating volunteer organizations and even relationships. It's very business-focused, but the principles strike me as useful across lots of interpersonal situations. If you're struggling to form a positive culture in any group setting, it might be worth a listen.

[Zoë Routh · Rating 5 out of 5]

At last, a practical and useful book into how to work collaboratively and collectively across an organisation without hierarchy.

This book is elegant and nicely illustrated with hand drawn symbols and figures.

It includes complex concepts that are made simple and practical.

I’ll be using this book as a handbook with clients when looking to implement collective decision making and creating a more equitable organisation.

Samantha Slade appears on the Zoe Routh Leadership Podcast in 2023 and brings to life the stories, and how to overcome the inherent challenges, including how to confront a legacy of colonialism in our collective histories.

A worthy read.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slade does an excellent job of turning theory in to practice, emphasizing along the way that we all personally have the power to incorporate more of the attributes of a horizontal organization into our work lives, even as our greater organization may not be changing.

The book is stronger -- perhaps because the topics are more immediately implementable -- at the beginning, and is better suited for individual practice and reflection. It would be an effective read for staff working for an organization making the transition to a horizontal structure.

[Kate Loritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully practical manual for creating a flatter organization, one mindset at a time. From how and why to schedule a meeting all the way to who should be involved in key decisions, Ms. Slade offers tips and guidelines you can try out as soon as you end a chapter. I'd even consider using this as a team or function exercise, to choose something in the book and model what good looks like. The ultimate goal is to reduce the need/practice/silent culture of bureaucracy and create an environment of true belonging, where everyone's thoughts and ideas have a place at the table.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biggest message is that everything starts with you- EVERYTHING
Your mindset is the most important part of the change to a less hierarchical way of working.

Great tools not just for creating a horizontal organisation but also for improving meetings, decision making, proposal making, coaching and creating more effective teams

[Rivera Sun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been waiting for this book without knowing it. I’ve been searching for it through stacks of other (excellent) reads on horizontal organizing, emergent systems, and grassroots democracy and movements. The tangible, down-to-earth immediacy of Slade’s book turns conceptual ideas into useful tools that you can wrap your hands, heart, and mind around. She’s designed the book to be used, including practice suggestions and check-in questions, and the result is a truly useful book. The ideas come out of her direct experiences with Percolab, a laboratory for self-organization that works internationally with businesses and civic/public engagement projects. Her writing style is approachable, humorous, and relatable.Going Horizontal is a must-read. We are all replicating oppressive systems of hierarchy . . . and we often know it. What we don’t know is how to change those behaviors. That’s where Going Horizontal can support us. One of the endearingly pragmatic parts of the book is Slade’s reminder that even if the organization we’re working with is not ready to incorporate horizontal practices, there is still a lot we can do individually in how we’re interacting with others. Its a stealth campaign for horizontal practices, a way of infiltrating and subverting the dominant paradigm of hierarchy. (The rebellious streak in me delights in such opportunities. How about you?)

Note: This is excerpted from my full review, which can be read here: http://www.riverasun.com/going-horizontal /

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expect non-fiction books not only to provide dry, encyclopedic kind of knowledge, BUT also to inspire, convince - in other words: to "sell" me the idea. I'm bringing this up, because GH simply didn't do it. I don't want to sound unfair to the author (who I don't know & have no reason to downsize), but the book felt more like a summary of modern organizational practices found on the Internet than an actual product of someone who had something important to pass further.

Which is ... unfortunate. I had high expectations, especially when it comes to topics like:
- decision making
- performance management & career growth
- "drive" (when it's not there)
- scaling
... but unfortunately I didn't get as much "meat" as I wanted. Yes, actually there was quite a nice challenge about 3 types of decision making, but ... that's about it.

To summarize: I've expected more, especially knowing that the book is based on practices used within a real, existing company (Percolab).

[Onno Geveke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you want to create more participatory working environments? Would you like to start with daily practices involving your team more? This is the book to go for.
In these days, many people are looking for ways to collaborate more constructively as peers or within their teams. Sometimes actively striving for self management, sometimes looking for small steps towards more horizontal ways of working.

Samantha's book describes 7 domains of practice where you can start experimenting with tomorrow. On being more transparent, or learning together, or make better decisions together. All practices we recognise in our work.

I highly recommend this book for reading, discussing and starting the practice. And through that practice we learn about ourselves, our team, our organisation about the potential of creating more non-hierarchical organisations.

[KasiaMiko · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit slow-going at the start, where the author tries hard to maintain a conversational tone and convince the reader that getting interested in horizontal organisations is worth their time. But don't let this fool you – the book is simple but not simplistic, accessible but choke-full of very practical advice about how to go about introducing and trialling horizontal approaches in all kinds of organisations that we get involved in at work and privately. Though I still have outstanding questions, I will be sharing the book with friends and co-workers and definitely experimenting with the suggested methods in my own life.

[Ed Schaefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Well I can't really say how many of the ideas are completely new or unique, the approach as mentioned in the title of "one practice at a time" really stood out to me. I appreciate that this book gives clear instructions on how to approach these problems, and using this you could definitely tackle it step by step.
Highly recommended for anyone trying to make their organization more flat.

[Jade Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely interesting take on workplace dynamics which has really helped me to better understand how to be a leader regardless of my position. I love how everything seemed simple and to the point in the book since the topic is complex and hard to understand. I feel like I may need to read it every couple months just to check in with my progress. I would list this as a must read especially as someone who is gen z and recently joining the workforce.

[Simon Hohenadl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compendium of practices that help going from a top-down organization to a more horizontal one. I found especially the description of decision making methods helpful. Apart from that, there was not much new for me here. I particularly missed something more on making the actual structure and governance horizontal.

[Esteban Mulki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mind igniter book full of challenging ideas that you can pick and try no matter how close or not your organization is to a non-hierarchical one. I would have loved to get a little bit more of the theoretical framework but as Mick told us back in 1969, you can't always get what you want (?). Great book overall.

[Caro Monast · Rating 3 out of 5]

Donne des bons conseils, mais écrit pour une classe dirigeante qui veut horizontaliser son entreprise. Pas beaucoup d'apprentissages si vous évoluez dans des milieux autogérés et que vous tentez d'aiguiser vos pratiques.

[Abby Epplett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real mixed bag. Some chapters had okay advice about leading meetings or sharing information. Others blamed employees for wanting to be happy in the workplace, as if a toxic work environment was all in perspective.

[Sergey Shishkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good introduction into non-hierarchical organizational methods. I liked the emphasis on individual practices. Not much new information for those familiar with holacracy or teal organizations.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lot’s of interesting ideas to collaborate better with your coworkers

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful guide to non-hierarchical practices applicable beyond the workplace for democratic organizations of all kinds. Especially valuable are the insights into consent-based decision-making. As late-stage capitalism continues to play out and we seek to progress past vertical paradigms, one could even say that this is a glimpse into what any viable future of work and social organization looks like.