Beyond addiction: Hierarchy and other ways of getting strategy done

Hierarchy is habitually presented as the right organizational infrastructure through which to deploy and achieve strategy. We analyze the strategy process, specifically the strategy/execution debate, from the perspective of hierarchy, and contrast the hierarchical mode – where top management dominates by separating strategy/formulation and execution – with three alternative modes where the power circuits of strategy extend beyond the managerial elite and are shared by several strategic agents. These three possibilities are: (1) the porous hierarchical mode, in which the hierarchs/higher-ups transfer part of the power for shaping and informing the strategy to the base of the organization; (2) the distributed mode, in which the hierarchs have no direct influence but rather indirect moral authority over execution, and (3) the strategy as simple rules mode, in which strategy/execution is taken as a single iterative process where strategy evolves on the basis of a minimal structure that facilitates strategic interaction and prevents hierarchical control from stifling adaptation.