Horizontal Organization

A horizontal organization, also called a flat structure, is a company with few or no layers of management, where responsibility and influence are spread evenly across its members instead of concentrated at the top. Its members decide together and act on their own work without waiting for approval from above.

In a traditional hierarchy, power sits at the top and decisions travel down the chain. A flat structure gives each member an equal voice and an equal share of responsibility. Companies choose it to create a democratic work climate and to draw on the skills and ideas of every employee. Some companies go further and rebuild their teams around each project, a form the management scholar Henry Mintzberg called an adhocracy. It often goes with participatory ways of deciding, such as consensus or decision by consent, through which the whole team sets its goals and solves its problems.

The limits of a flat structure

A flat structure gets harder to run as a company grows. Conflicts also take longer to settle when there is no manager to arbitrate them. The size limit of a flat structure is usually around 100 to 150 people per autonomous unit, so a large company that wants to stay flat can split into several units.