This is one of the worst article I read on this topic. The author is confusing the structure (pyramid versus network) with the type of leadership (authority versus direction and autonomy).
The Amazon story recreated the origin story of scrum, in 1986.<p>The "crushing" is taking its sweet time<p><a href="https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game" rel="nofollow">https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game</a><p><a href="https://www.se.rit.edu/~swen-356/resources/TheNewProductDevelopmentGame.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.se.rit.edu/~swen-356/resources/TheNewProductDeve...</a>
This article confuses a bunch of different concepts. For example, the "hierarchies of competence" could be considered what was called "matrix management" back in the day.<p>But overall the message is pretty clear: is your organization top-down or bottom-up? How do decisions get made, and who gets to make them?
whew… I was worried I was going to be the only one to hammer the article. Fluff pieces like this are the reason I stopped reading business advice books or articles altogether.