The research is clear. Hierarchical structures slow decision-making, suppress innovation, and create bottlenecks that frustrate everyone from frontline employees to executives. 61% of workers spend most of their time navigating organizational politics rather than making decisions. We know this. We’ve measured it. We’ve experienced it.
Yet we keep building them. Layer upon layer, approval chain upon approval chain, the same structures that demonstrably create the problems we’re trying to solve.
This isn’t ignorance. It’s not organizational inertia. The resistance to dynamic and flat hierarchies runs deeper than that — it’s psychological, professional, and institutional. Understanding why we can’t let go is the first step to actually evolving beyond structures built for telegraph-speed communication in a light-speed world.
The Paradox: We Know It’s Broken, But We Can’t Stop Building It
Here’s what makes this fascinating: the people who suffer most from hierarchies are also the ones defending them.
Research shows that 57% of C-suite executives admit they waste time on organizational politics and decision uncertainty — the same percentage as frontline employees. Leaders aren’t immune to the dysfunction. They’re stuck in it, aware of it, and yet perpetuating it.
This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s rational resistance in the face of genuine uncertainty. Because while we know hierarchies create problems, we also know that removing them creates different problems — ones that feel more dangerous because they’re less familiar.
The Psychology: Why Hierarchies Feel Safe Even When They’re Not
Human brains are wired for hierarchy. Cognitive science research demonstrates that hierarchical structures reduce cognitive load by providing clear mental models for how organizations work. When you join a company with a traditional org chart, you immediately understand who reports to whom, who has authority, and where decisions flow.
That clarity is psychologically reassuring. Even when it’s functionally inefficient.
Dynamic and Flat structures, by contrast, create ambiguity. Who makes the final call? How do we resolve conflicts? What happens when there’s no clear escalation path? These questions don’t have obvious answers in non-hierarchical designs, and that ambiguity triggers anxiety.
As MIT Sloan research found, removing hierarchy doesn’t just change reporting lines — it changes personalities. When Valve experimented with radical flatness, employees who thrived in traditional structures struggled. Those who were assertive and proactive flourished. Those who preferred clear guidance felt lost.
That’s not a failure of individuals. It’s recognition that structures shape behavior, and removing familiar structures creates psychological discomfort that feels like incompetence.
The Career Calculation: Hierarchies Are Where We Invest
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most of us built our careers climbing hierarchical ladders. Every promotion, every title change, every expansion of our team size was progress within a hierarchical framework.
Flattening that structure doesn’t just reorganize work — it devalues the career capital we’ve accumulated.
90% of Millennials want flat organizations, but that same research reveals a darker pattern: companies that remove hierarchies see retention drop by 40% among employees who thrived in the previous structure. Those aren’t stubborn dinosaurs refusing to adapt. Those are professionals watching their career trajectory vanish overnight.
When you’ve spent fifteen years becoming a director, “we’re removing middle management” doesn’t sound like liberation. It sounds like elimination.
This creates a structural lock-in effect. The people with the authority to flatten hierarchies are the people whose careers depend on maintaining them. It’s not corruption — it’s rational self-interest. We resist changes that diminish the value of our accumulated expertise.
The Institutional Reality: Flat Structures Fail Without Infrastructure
There’s another reason we keep rebuilding hierarchies: we’ve watched flat structures collapse.
The stories are consistent. Companies remove management layers, decision-making becomes chaotic, conflicts escalate, productivity drops, and hierarchies quietly rebuild themselves. Not because people are stubborn, but because removing structure without replacing it with functional alternatives creates a vacuum.
Valve’s famous flat structure works — but only because they’ve built extensive informal coordination mechanisms, rigorous hiring filters, and cultural norms that replace formal authority with peer accountability.
Most organizations try to flatten without building those replacements. They remove the hierarchy but keep the same processes that assume hierarchies exist. The result isn’t empowerment — it’s confusion. Who approves budgets? Who resolves disputes? Who coordinates across teams? When those questions don’t have clear answers, employee stress increases and performance degrades.
Gartner research shows that only 20% of organizations that attempted to flatten hierarchies reported improved performance. That’s not evidence that hierarchies are good — it’s evidence that removing them without thoughtful replacement infrastructure is worse.
The Path Forward: Rational Evolution, Not Revolutionary Flattening
Understanding the resistance is more useful than condemning it. The question isn’t “why are people so attached to hierarchies” but “what legitimate needs do hierarchies meet, and how do we meet those needs differently?”
Psychological clarity. Hierarchies provide mental models for how work flows. Network structures need different clarity mechanisms — explicit decision frameworks, transparent workflows, and clear accountability without vertical authority. Research on de-layering shows that successful transitions require building new coordination infrastructure before removing old structures.
Career progression. Hierarchies offer visible advancement paths. Alternative models need different progression mechanisms — mastery tracks, scope expansion, peer recognition, and compensation growth independent of people management. If the only way to grow is to manage people, you’ll keep building management layers.
Conflict resolution. Hierarchies provide escalation paths when teams disagree. Flat structures need different resolution mechanisms — peer mediation, evidence-based decision protocols, and domain authority that doesn’t require vertical power. Remove hierarchy without building these, and you get paralysis.
Coordination at scale. Hierarchies coordinate work through approval chains. Network structures need different coordination — clear interfaces between teams, transparent dependencies, and distributed decision-making with aligned incentives. As I’ve explored in telegraph-era org charts, the structure should match the communication medium.
This isn’t about declaring hierarchies obsolete. It’s about recognizing they’re tools designed for specific conditions — slow information flow, centralized expertise, stable environments. When conditions change, the tools need to evolve.
The resistance isn’t irrational. It’s people correctly recognizing that removing familiar structures without functional replacements creates chaos. The path forward isn’t revolutionary flattening — it’s methodical evolution that addresses the legitimate needs hierarchies currently meet.
Your org chart might be 170 years old, but the psychology defending it is legitimate. Understanding that resistance is how you move beyond it.
Ralph Jocham is Europe’s first Professional Scrum Trainer, co-author of “Professional Product Owner,” and contributor to the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack. As an ICF ACC certified coach, he works with organizations to build Product Operating Models where strategic clarity, operational excellence, and adaptive learning create measurable competitive advantage. Learn more at effective agile.