. In sports, teams with more unequal pay – a measure of hierarchy – performed worse on the field. Similarly unequal pay in management teams has been linked to poorer corporate performance.pinpointed
four key factors for successful hierarchy in a recent article that can be useful as you ponder your own organization. The first is to build hierarchy based on expertise. In a 2016 study, she asked college students to imagine they were on a desert island and rank the various items available such as salt tablets and a compass by how much help those offered. Then they were asked to move into teams and repeat that task.
“This supports the idea that it isn’t hierarchy that’s the problem, but how we promote people within organizations. What we need are objective criteria to ensure that people who are making it to the top actually have the competence to be there. This also helps promote diversity and inclusion, so that these decisions aren’t dictated by conscious or unconscious biases that have nothing to do with expertise,” she noted.
Second, she recommends countering feelings of resentment and inferiority that can occur in a hierarchy by giving people power within their own domains to specialize. While she reports to a department chair within her university who makes decisions on the whole department, she still has high ownership of the courses she gives.
Finally, reduce the power distance. The most effective hierarchies are the ones with a short distance between top and bottom – both objectively and according to people’s perceptions. Her research on start-ups found they are effective when they have hierarchies but helped if the leaders work to create a “flat” feeling. In that vein, teams feel less hierarchical when the leader has a second-in-command who informally links the leader to the rest of the team.“I do not believe in goals.