Hierarchy will not go away

We have kept hearing again and again about the importance of talent management, empowering people to be creative, encouraging individualism, and so on. But as Peter Coy mentions in a recent BusinessWeek article, even in an innovation driven economy, hierarchy will remain indispensable for getting things done. The author quotes a reputed organizational behaviour expert, Harold J Leavitt, “You still have to do what the boss expects you to do. There is a veil of humanism. We call each other by our first names. But when the chips are down, the boss says you are fired.” While individual initiative and creativity cannot be undermined, systems and processes will continue to be important. Indeed that is what companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro have mastered as they have scaled up their operations. If we take a larger perspective, we will see that a system centric approach and strong people orientation are not totally inconsistent. When systems and processes are strong, talented individuals are freed from the drudgery of routine jobs and can do more creative tasks.