Decisions Without Hierarchy

TWO

Hierarchy

The concept of hierarchy was invented in the fifth century by Denys the Areopagite.¹ He used the term to define and describe an organizational structure based on the top-down delegation of power and determination of functions. This system derived from his religious beliefs; for the Greeks, hierarchy meant “sacred rule.”² The word was also adopted to “denote the power given by Christ to his apostles and their successors to form and govern the church.”³ Later, Shakespeare defended the concept of hierarchy in his play Troilus and Cressida with the following famous passage: “Take but degree away, untune that string, and hark what discord follows.”⁴

In the modern literature of organization theory, the term has been defined as “any system ...