# The Rigid Work of Independence By:: [[Steven Denman]] 2023-07-17 I was recently hiking up a couple of mountains and thinking about organizational culture (don't worry, it was not at the same time). Many large companies have top-down organizational structures, and many fewer aspire to have independence like that of ant colonies. What struck me is the difficulty people share in changing course once you commit to either option. Maybe it is that the "architecture" of the organization is not very flexible and is actually adapted to the communication and decision pathways in the system. Not to anyone's surprise, a highly independent Patagonia employee being dropped into a highly structured government job would not change the system; it would frustrate people on both sides of the ridge of independence. One implication of this thinking, and the advice of those from cultures like Netflix and Patagonia, is not to try and go up the ridge and down the other side but to start with the first employee and build from there. One of the beliefs behind this is that people are not the only aspect of an independent culture. Still, the decision pathways, the highways of communication, the project management approach, etc., are far more difficult to transform than one person's attitude. #### Related Items [[Culture]] [[Work]] [[Architecture]] [[Organization]] [[Thinking]]