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Thanks to the changing nature of the workplace. When remote work titles hog, another revolution is taking place in the workplace: centralization is over, and decentralized management is underway, reflecting widespread technological trends. Cryptocurrency emphasizes the benefits of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and Web3 centralized authority. Given the technological turnaround of each organization today, it is understandable to adopt these policies in the field of workplace management as well.
Here’s how companies are using decentralized management to prove the future of their business and increase employee satisfaction.
Self-sufficiency
One of the common problems faced by officials is the lack of flexibility in their organization during times of crisis. Typically, crises reach a critical level before they reach the attention of executives, at which point they need to intervene personally. Ideally, crises should be cut short, and lower-level employees must actively address them.
A centralized organization holds a huge amount of power in the hands of a few. The organization is structured vertically, resulting in a long decision-making chain where each decision is second-guessed. In contrast, a decentralized organization prioritizes the views of those closest to stakeholders and subject matter experts. It turns out to be a flat or horizontal entity that solves problems cleverly and quickly.
Harvard Business Review Note that decentralized organizations work best when responsiveness is the highest priority. An organization formed in this way also frees the executives time to do more value addition work without always chasing the fire. Another advantage is that lower-level employees are empowered to think about the future of the organization without having to worry about what their manager will think. The result is a flexible organization that is future-proof.
Related: How To Simplify And Flow Your Business In 2022
Promotes leadership skills
Companies always face employee churning due to lack of competitive work or dissatisfaction with the overall direction of the company. These two factors are interrelated. A rigid organizational hierarchy leaves employees struggling to influence their managers rather than creating revenue-generating assets.
Leadership skills are very low as power is concentrated in the hands of a handful of people. Thus, when top-level executives move forward, the company faces a difficult time replacing those who have left, and resources must be employed to find and test appropriate leadership.
Promoting from within is ideal because long-term employees understand the company and its products well. They have witnessed the company’s processes from the ground up, which makes them ideal leaders. However, centralized organizations do not provide opportunities for lower-level employees to assume leadership roles.
A decentralized organization forces employees to act as leaders. Thanks to the priority of greater autonomy and responsiveness, employees must act decisively. Entrepreneurship grows, promotes creativity, and strengthens the organization.
Empowered employees will automatically come up with ideas to enhance the company’s products. The result is an upgrade to company-wide leadership skills and a better competitive stance.
Easy scaling
Scaling a business is a difficult task. Typically, a centralized organization has to design new hierarchies and determine the level of additional responsibilities of existing executives. All of this results in a slow expansion that often stops before it starts. In contrast, a decentralized organization can respond quickly to changes in business conditions and scale accordingly. Thanks to each team and employee working as a separate cell, the organization can realize the economics of scale and be smart at the same time.
For example, when a new market is expanding, a fully-fledged team can research local regulations and inform the broader company of the steps it is taking to launch the company’s products in that market. Thanks to the absence of a long approval period, the team can move quickly and establish a presence.
In this way, an organization resembles a collection of well-funded startups or early-stage companies, each team bringing its particular brand of creativity and expertise to a wider community. In addition, expanding teams can quickly customize the company’s products, resulting in greater sales and better customer engagement.
Efficient management
Although decentralization emphasizes individual empowerment, the executive branch also has an important role to play. In fact, executives operate larger decentralized ships and do their best to empower their staff. Decentralization emphasizes lean management. The result is an executive team focused on maintaining a position that allows lower-level employees to fully express their creativity. This type of lean does not focus on establishing management authority or micromanagement.
It is also easy to determine metrics and other performance indicators in this framework because executives are not involved in every single low-level decision. Instead, they can focus on the bigger picture and ensure that the organization’s goals are being met. The result is a happy executive team that does a lot of value addition work. The inherent flexibility of the organization allows employees to choose the work they are most passionate about, rather than following the path of the default executive career. Thus, those who are truly passionate about being executive and performing the underlying tasks of these roles occupy positions.
Related: 4 Ways to Focus on Your Employees Will Change Your Business
Decentralization is more than just a buzz word these days. This is the best way for organizations to form themselves in 2022 and beyond. Given the rapid pace of change in the business world, decentralization is the best way to prove the future of an organization.
