Scott Porad

We have a very flat organizational structure at Cheezburger.  Recently, I’ve been considering if we should add some more structure when Thiggy pointed me toward an interview with the Barry Salzberg, the CEO of Deloitte.

A few key quotes on organizational structure and leadership:

Gone is the day of the old command-and-control environment, the climb-the-ladder model, in which the employee kept quiet and didn’t say too much, certainly not much beyond what was asked and tasked…Gone, too, is the densely layered organizational hierarchy [and] dinosaur-like structures that are too slow and lumbering for today’s environment.”

Leadership now needs to be the norm, not the exception…No longer is leadership about a few exceptional leaders at the top of the organization. Rather, the future is about exceptional teams and the leaders within those teams who can out-maneuver, out-manage and out-innovate their competition.

[Y]ou never know where the best ideas will come from. If you build a supportive environment where everyone is expected to contribute, you’ll get synergies and creative ideas you never imagined were possible.  That…is why leadership needs to be flat…leaders are required at all levels of the organization, not just at the top.

The experience helped him develop [the]…”no ostriches, no elephants” principle.  No burying your head in the sand if there’s a problem, and no ignoring the elephant in the room. Much better to name and tame an issue, no matter how difficult it is than to ignore it or pretend it isn’t there…Making sure the truth is told and discussed with all is the foundation of leadership. Without that, you can’t build trust.