Dina Lu's Blog

In Bob Sutton’s blog Work Matters, he comments on the The New York Times interview with the CEO of Citrix, Mark Templeton. What really strikes him is when Templeton speaks about the relation between hierarchy and respect: “You have to make sure you never confuse the hierarchy that you need for managing complexity with the respect that people deserve.” The point is that it’s important that top-management does not engage in power poisoning, which is mistaking high-in-the-hierarchy for high respect.

I agree with Sutton and Templeton. Connecting back to my Business Fundamentals Class 14, whose focus was “People, Culture, and Teams”, Sutton’s blog and Templeton’s article emphasizes again the importance of organizational structure. Whether an organization has a flat or tall organizational structure affects its employees in ways good and bad depending on the organization’s size, complexity, and nature. Generally, flatter structures facilitate better communication between employees and top management, while taller structures require most of a step-wise communication path between the two. Nevertheless, employees and employers should be treated with the same respect; as Sutton puts it in his blog post, “When leaders believe and especially act on this belief, all sorts of good things happen”.