I’ve been thinking about organizations for a long time—not just how to improve them, but how they are designed. What holds them together. Why they look—and behave—the way they do. A few years ago, I decided to bring that work together in one place: my website, circlesNdots.com.
Recently, while playing around with Copilot, I asked a simple question: what do you think of my website?
I wasn’t asking for a comparison. Just a read.
But Copilot took it further. It started comparing my ideas to contemporary management theories—decentralized structures, self-management, more empowered teams.
The response was thoughtful. But as I read through the analysis, something stood out.
Almost all of the approaches—no matter how progressive they sounded—still assumed some form of top-down hierarchy. Authority still sat somewhere above. It might be softer. It might be distributed. But it was still there.
That underlying logic caught my attention.
Not because it challenged my thinking—but because it reinforced something I’ve been noticing for years.
We don’t just struggle to build different kinds of organizations. We struggle to imagine them.
I’ve seen this play out consistently over the past two decades—in classrooms, in consulting work, and in executive programs like those at the Banff Centre, where I use a simple exercise called Typical Day.
It’s a short story. Ten people working through a production and sales issue. Conversations move, decisions get made, and work progresses. There are no titles. No mention of anyone reporting to anyone. Just people working.
Afterward, I ask a straightforward question: draw the organization.
And almost without exception, people recreate a traditional hierarchy. Boxes. Lines. While they work on the activity, I usually walk the room. I hear “reports to,” “boss,” “manager” over and over again.
Even though nothing in the story suggested that structure. It existed only in their interpretation.
That’s the part that’s hard to ignore.
People don’t just describe what they saw—they impose a structure they assume must be there. Authority must come from above. Coordination must flow downward. Positions and roles (like Plant Manager) are inferred—even when they were never defined.
No one is told to do this. They just do.
We don’t question organizational structure the way we question other systems. We don’t step back and ask why authority sits where it does, or whether it has to.
It just… is.
And because it feels natural, alternatives feel unrealistic. Or abstract. Or idealistic.
Even when we try to move beyond top-down authority—introducing more autonomy, more empowerment—we often stay within the same basic frame.
Participation increases. Ultimate authority stays put.
I’ve started to think of this less as a design problem and more as a perception problem.
We’re trying to change how we interact with each other and the organizations we are a part of. Collaboration, power, agency—I hear these words everywhere. We seek a systemic solution, but we don’t question the current system.
We still operate within mental models shaped by the industrial era. Models built around control—clear lines of authority, defined roles, coordination from above.
Those models are incredibly effective. They’ve scaled organizations across the world.
But our acceptance, and reliance on them, now shape how we see. And once something becomes the default way of seeing, it becomes very difficult to imagine anything else.
I’m starting to believe my role, for now, is not to promote a new model of organization design based on collaboration.
It may be simpler than that: to help unlock the belief—the imagination—that another model is possible.