The Tech Stack That Makes Hierarchy Obsolete

I recently had an eye-opening conversation with Philippe Pinault, co-founder and CEO of Talkspirit, a European company helping organizations succeed with self-management through their technology. What follows are the practical insights from our discussion about making self-management work.

First things first: self-management is hard

There's no way of implementing a non-hierarchical organization without rethinking many existing structures and processes.

What makes it even harder?

That most of those existing structures and processes feel as natural and invisible as water to a fish.

We don't even notice them until someone points out that we're swimming in hierarchy, bureaucracy, and control mechanisms that have shaped our entire concept of "work."

What there is, however, is a growing body of practical knowledge from companies that have successfully implemented self-management across hundreds or even thousands of people.

Why most companies fail at self-management

When organizations run a non-hierarchical organization without the right structure, one of two things typically happens:

• Chaos: Teams lose coordination, priorities become unclear, and efficiency tanks. People start longing for "the good old days" when someone just told them what to do.

• Stealth hierarchy: An unofficial power structure emerges. The loudest voices or most tenured employees start calling the shots. It's a hierarchy without the accountability or clarity.

Both scenarios suck, and both are avoidable.

Structure ≠ hierarchy

Here's the critical insight most miss: structure does not equal hierarchy.

Progressive organizations create robust frameworks and processes while maintaining autonomy. They formalize and codify their way of working without defaulting to traditional management layers.

These elements need clear structure:

• Purpose and values

• Organizational design

• Roles and responsibilities

• Decision-making processes

• Meeting cadences

• Reward systems

• Conflict resolution mechanisms

If they aren't properly codified, you risk missing out on the beautiful benefits of self-management.

So, how do you codify them? Well, one way to do it is by leveraging technology.

But be careful.

Technology is the enabler here, not the solution.

Read that again. And again.

Technology enables self-management, it doesn't create it

Too many companies make the mistake of thinking software alone will create self-management. It won't.

Philippe puts it bluntly: "We are not just selling software; we're helping companies navigate the choppy waters of complexity and uncertainty. Our aim is to enable our customers to drive governance innovation faster than they can say 'quarterly report.'"

Technology should support your practices, not drive them. The right tools can:

• Create transparency around roles and responsibilities

• Make decision-making processes visible

• Support asynchronous collaboration

• Track goals, commitments, and accountability

The technology toolkit that actually works

Here are specific ways technology can enable your non-hierarchical organization:

1. Project and task management tools

Not just for assigning work, but for creating visibility. The best implementations allow anyone to see who's working on what, the status of projects, and dependencies – all without a manager having to coordinate.

Philippe: “Agence Bergamote uses task management features to track responsibilities across self-managed teams, reducing the need for top-down oversight. They've reportedly cut internal emails by 95% through improved collaboration systems.”

2. Decision documentation systems

Create a central place where important decisions are recorded along with the context, reasoning, and expected outcomes. This creates institutional memory and prevents the "why are we doing this again?" conversations.

Philippe: “QoQa, an e-commerce platform with around 50 employees, implemented a "decision log" in their digital workspace. Every significant decision gets recorded with its rationale, creating institutional memory and allowing anyone to understand why things work the way they do.”

3. Role clarity platforms

Make it clear who's responsible for what without relying on hierarchical job descriptions or reporting lines.

Philippe: “At Welser Profile, a 350-year-old industrial company with 2,400 employees, roles are mapped in their digital workspace. This allows anyone to quickly find the right person for a specific need without going through a chain of command.”

4. Asynchronous communication tools

Reduce dependency on meetings and enable teams to collaborate across time zones and schedules.

Philippe: “Relaytion, an international customer relations group, deployed Talkspirit across 500 employees in just three weeks. Their managers use chat functions instead of email for faster responses while maintaining team cohesion between day and night shifts through dedicated group channels. As Operational Manager Adeline Larrieu notes, "The platform has allowed us to maintain group dynamics and bring teams closer together, both face-to-face and remotely."

5. Feedback and recognition platforms

Create systems where feedback flows in all directions, not just from top to bottom.

Philipple: “Companies using Talkspirit rethink how feedback works. Instead of relying on traditional top-down reviews, they build a system where peer feedback is constant and integrated into daily work. Stormshield or Solimut Mutuelle, for example, use Talkspirit’s internal social network to make knowledge sharing and mutual support part of their culture.“

“Employees exchange solutions, ask for advice, and offer constructive feedback in a secure space. Over time, this strengthens collaboration and brings hidden talent to the surface, giving more people the confidence to take on visible roles.”

Self-management requires structure, not wishful thinking

Most companies approach self-management with lofty ideals but no practical game plan. They talk about "empowerment" and "autonomy" while providing zero structure to make it work.

That's not self-management. That's organizational malpractice.

What's missing in most attempts at self-management isn't vision or intent—it's the nuts and bolts of how work actually gets done.

If you're serious about running a non-hierarchical organization, you need to be equally serious about the tools and systems that enable it.

As Philippe puts it: "The best self-managed organizations aren't just idealists—they're pragmatists who build structures that make hierarchy unnecessary."

A powerful tool in your self-management arsenal isn't just nice to have—it's an essential infrastructure that replaces the functions hierarchy used to serve:

• Project management software replaces the coordination function of middle managers

• Decision documentation replaces the institutional memory function of long-tenured executives

• Role clarity apps replace traditional org charts and reporting lines

• Asynchronous communication replaces the information flow function of hierarchical chains

• Peer feedback systems replace top-down performance reviews

Without these systems, people will either flounder in chaos or revert to command and control out of sheer survival instinct. Maybe not in very small companies, but certainly in organizations with 50, 100, 500, or more people.

The hard truth about self-management

Let's be honest: running a non-hierarchical organization is harder than running a traditional one—at first. It requires more thoughtful design, more transparent communication, and more personal responsibility from everyone involved.

But that up-front investment pays massive dividends. The organizations that get it right outperform their hierarchical competitors on nearly every meaningful metric: innovation, employee satisfaction, adaptability, and often profitability.

The question isn't whether your organization can afford to attempt self-management. It's whether it can afford not to.

Companies holding onto traditional hierarchies today are like running MS-DOS in a cloud computing world. It technically still works, but you're operating at a fraction of what's possible.

The future belongs to organizations that can harness the full intelligence and creativity of everyone in their system—not just those at the top of an org chart.

Tech can be a great enabler to achieve that.

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Partnership note
This article was created in partnership with Talkspirit. The insights and opinions expressed are (as always) entirely my own, and I share our ongoing paid collaboration in the spirit of transparency.