When should organizations think about adopting a flat structure? And what does it take to make it work? Is it even the silver bullet that we’ve been told it is? Often we have heard about how businesses should organize in non-traditional ways to succeed in today’s world: be ‘agile’, or adopt approaches such as ‘holacracy,’ ‘RenDanHeYi’ or ‘scrum’. But what do these concepts actually mean? Are they even helping us to custom-tailor flat structures to our needs?

Leading expert, Markus Reitzig, provides a no-holds barred account of flat organizational structures, taking the good with the bad and asking the reader to balance the opportunities and challenges that come with less hierarchical structures. He explains that there are many types of flat organizations, and that they may only be better than traditional companies in some instances, and only when the company picks the right structure given its goal and its people.

Taking an evidence-based approach to the advantages and disadvantages of decentralizing, this book offers a unique, practical guide for managers. You’ll learn how to formulate realistic goals with fewer hierarchical layers, where to decentralize, whom to recruit and how to treat your staff. This is an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to figure out how to work with flat organizational structures, and whether ‘flat’ may even be right for them.

Markus Reitzig is Professor of Strategic Management and Subject Area Chair at the University of Vienna. Dr. Reitzig is a global authority on the strategic management of new organizational forms. His research has been featured in outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, McKinsey Quarterly, and Business Strategy Review, and his studies have been published in the finest academic journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Research Policy, Strategic Management Journal, and many others. Markus is regularly sought after as an expert interviewee for national and international media and frequently presents at public and corporate events. He has been a speaker at several TEDx events over the past years on the subject of hierarchy-less organizations.