Carl Smith tells the story of how nGen Works shifted from an equal partnership, to benevolent dictator pyramid, to its current model: The Jellyfish Work Model.
"The issues with the traditional hierarchy are mainly that the person at the top has no clue what's really going on because there's a layer in the middle that protects that individual from the people on the bottom of the hierarchy who truly understand what's going on in the industry [...] The middle tier used to be on the bottom and they've stopped learning because they're trying to protect what they've established. As soon as we move from learning and creating to protecting, that's when things start to fall apart, and sadly the person at the top is normally oblivious because they distrust everyone that's been around them for so long."
We see it like this. The Jellyfish Model describes a temporary, distributed, decentralized team that creates its own roles and accomplishes tasks together. Decentralized teams give everyone equal footing to find holistic and effective solutions. Even in decentralized teams a temporary hierarchy may form. But its purpose is to maximize the effectiveness of the team. There is no jellyfish king.
This model is working for us, but we understand it's not for everyone. If you'd like to find out more information about our work model and think it could be a good fit, reach out! We'd love to connect with you.
Cheers,
Carl Smith
carl@ngenworks.com