|
Hi Steve,
Last night I read The Emperor's New Clothes to my kids before bed.
You know the tale. Two swindlers convince a vain emperor they can weave him a suit so magnificent it's invisible to anyone "unfit for their position."
Ministers praise the invisible fabric. Courtiers nod along. The emperor parades naked through the streets.
And only when a child blurts out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" does the illusion shatter.
My kids laughed. I tucked them in.
Later that evening I picked up my own bedtime reading: Erich Fromm's To Have or to Be?
And I couldn't sleep.
Because Fromm describes the exact same illusion. In organizations.
Having authority vs. being an authority
Fromm makes a distinction that most management books still haven't caught up with.
He separates two modes of authority: having authority vs. being authority.
- Having authority is based on position. On titles. On org charts. On the uniform.
- Being an authority is based on competence. On wisdom. On presence. On what a person radiates through who they are, not through what they control.
In small groups (and so, in small organizations), Fromm writes, authority emerged naturally.
The most experienced person in a subject leads that subject. The most empathetic resolves disputes. When people's competence fades, so does their authority.
No permanent titles. No golden parachutes. No corner offices.
Authority is earned and re-earned, constantly.
Then we built hierarchies
As companies grow larger and more complex, something shifts. Competence gets transferred to the uniform.
The actual qualities that made someone worth following get replaced by titles, positions, and org chart boxes.
Fromm calls this the alienation of authority.
The king can be stupid, vicious, incompetent. But as long as he wears the crown, everyone pretends he's wise.
Sound familiar? It should.
It's the emperor's new clothes: as an organizational design principle.
The corporate parade
Most traditional organizations run on having-authority.
Think about it.
- The strategy deck nobody reads but everyone praises.
- The KPIs that measure activity instead of impact.
- The leadership slogans painted on walls that nobody believes.
Everyone sees the gaps. But few dare speak up.
Because in hierarchies, pointing out the obvious can cost you your credibility. Or your job.
So, the parade continues. People applaud invisible fabric because the system rewards applause and punishes honesty.
And the higher up you look, the harder it becomes to tell whether the emperor is actually wearing anything at all.
Fromm saw this clearly.
In large hierarchical systems, he wrote, it is much easier for millions to be fooled by an artificial image than it was for a small tribe to misjudge their leader.
The bigger the hierarchy, the thicker the illusion.
Why the child matters
Back to the fairy tale.
The child in Andersen's story has no position to protect. No title to lose. No corner office at stake.
That's why the child can see clearly.
Fromm would say: the child doesn't have authority, so there's nothing to defend. The child simply is honest.
And that's the real lesson for organizations.
Truth doesn't come from the top. It comes from the edges. From the people with nothing to lose by saying what they see.
In hierarchies, those people get silenced. In progressive organizations, those people get heard.
From having to being
The most progressive organizations we've visited have made this shift. They've moved from having-authority to being-authority.
In our 6-week Masterclass (last week we opened the enrolment of our Summer cohort, more info here) we deep-dive into four case studies. At all four, authority isn't alienated from competence.
It's reunited with it.
You don't need more inspiration. You need a system.
|
|
We've studied 200+ pioneering organizations. We know what works. The Masterclass gives you the structures, the case studies, and a transformation roadmap you can directly use. 6 weeks, live, practical. Starts May 26.
|
|
Join the Masterclass
|
|
|
The costume party trap
But let's be honest. Even progressive companies aren't immune to the emperor's new clothes.
- Sometimes a pet project becomes untouchable.
- Or, a charismatic founder becomes a new emperor.
- Or, a popular idea turns into invisible fabric that nobody dares question.
Self-deception doesn't need hierarchy. It just needs silence.
That's why deliberate practices matter:
- Clear roles with end-to-end responsibilities to create decision-making clarity.
- Radical transparency so everyone sees the same data.
- Peer feedback to surface blind spots.
- Psychological safety so people can shout "naked!" without fear.
- And so forth.
Because when dissent is silenced, even the most progressive workplace risks turning into a costume party.
Undressing authority
The future of work isn't about abolishing authority.
It's about restoring it to its original, unalienated form: from having authority to being an authority.
The emperor's parade might still be marching through most corporations.
But in progressive organizations around the world, more and more children in the crowd are pointing and saying:
"This doesn't make sense." And that honesty is what makes them stronger.
Want to see what that looks like in practice?
This Tuesday, April 28 (10:00–11:00 CET), we're hosting a free webinar:
How to Flatten Your Org Without Creating Chaos
Reserve your spot here
Cheers,
Follow us on:
| 