The Three Ways of Getting Things Done: Hierarchy, Heterarchy and Responsible Autonomy in Organisations

Citation

Murphy, A. (2007), "The Three Ways of Getting Things Done: Hierarchy, Heterarchy and Responsible Autonomy in Organisations", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 28 No. 7, pp. 687-688. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730710823923

The author, Gerard Fairtlough, is a biochemist who worked for the Shell Group for 25 years, with five of these years as CEO of Shell Chemicals UK and later as founder and CEO of Celltech. He has been advisor to governments and to academic institutions and advisory panels.

The key message of this book is that the hegemony of hierarchy as a model of governance needs to be challenged and that models based on co‐operation, commitment, pluralism and common goals should be advocated. The acknowledgements page mentions the LSE Complexity Project and this is an indication of the approach of the book and of the type of thinking underpinning its message. Fairtlough argues that his book has a moral purpose in presenting the principles of non‐hierarchical management structures, not just for organisations but for society as a whole. In summary, the key principles used to support the book's main argument are as follows:

• •

  enabling systems are good: coercive systems are bad;

• •

  lack of voice can lead to exit of staff/members and to alienation;

• •

  heterarchy – a balance of power that leads to multiple voices – is preferable to hierarchy; and

• •

  responsible autonomy is preferable to hierarchy and heterarchy.

The main argument is that organisations are complex, adaptive systems that evolve ecologically through patterns of self‐organisation, that to respond to environmental conditions, and that all levels of management need to be aware of the processes of organisational evolution and co‐evolution so that they put aside uncritical preference for hierarchical structures.

The book itself if attractively structured into either chapters with numbered sub‐sections. Each page is formatted with a summary of key ideas in larger font in the left‐hand column: a sensible device to assist the reader in focusing on the logic of the arguments that unfold throughout the chapters. The glossary of terms, the extensive footnotes and the bibliography are very useful in leading the reader to focused understanding of the themes and principles presented in the chapters, as well as direction for further reading.

The book is written and structured with clarity and care making it very accessible for the reader unsupported by a formal management training programme. The content is offered with seriousness and depth while remaining relevant to any level of management in business or public management contexts. The anecdotes and real‐world examples are generic enough to be meaningful for any reader and to transfer across cultures of business and political systems. The message is humanistic, inclusive, tolerant and democratic: sentiments that certainly appeal to a wide readership, and that will not unduly alienate managers who operate from a hierarchical worldview. The book is a valuable contribution to the scholarship of management theory and is likely to endure as a resource for the immediate future in an increasingly complex world.