Block's Experiment Depends on Culture

Block wrote about replacing hierarchy with intelligence. Their argument is that middle managers mostly exist to move information, and a continuously updated model of the company can move it instead. This collapses the org to three roles: individual contributors, directly responsible individuals, and player-coaches. Worth a weekend read.

I’m curious more than convinced. Time will tell if it holds. Drawing a flatter org on paper is easy. Getting a whole company to work that way, and keep working that way when it gets uncomfortable, is the real experiment Block is conducting.

Culture is everything. The new model only works if people buy into it, and the article puts people at the edge, where the judgment calls live. Those are the ones you can least afford to lose. If the place wears them down, they leave, and the part of the job the model was not built to do leaves with them.