A Radical Enterprise

Chapter 3

Imperative #2: Managerial Devolution

Managerial devolution is an admittedly odd-sounding phrase. (When I first mentioned the term to a friend, he said that it conjured up images of proto-humanoid managers dressed in suits and ties shrieking at employees.) Despite the colloquial connotations, devolution is actually a technical term for the decentralization of power. When managerial powers—like the power to hire, fire, set pay, determine priorities, or change the organization’s policies and structures—are dispersed out of the hands of managers and into the organization at large, we refer to this process as managerial devolution. And when an organization carries this process to its logical conclusion, eliminating all of the coercive vestiges ...