Hardly anyone has a good word to say about hierarchies. They routinely transform motivated and loyal employees into disaffected Dilberts. Yet, the intensity with which we struggle against hierarchies only serves to highlight their durability. In this article, organizational behavior expert Harold J. Leavitt presents neither a defense of human hierarchies nor another attack on them. Instead, he offers a reality check, a reminder that hierarchy remains the basic structure of most, if not all, large, ongoing human organizations. That's because although they are often depicted as being out of date, hierarchies have proved to be extraordinarily adaptive. Over the past 50 years, for example, they have co-opted the three major managerial movements--human relations, analytic management, and communities of practice. Hierarchies also persist because they deliver real practical and psychological value, and they fulfill our deep need for order and security. Despite the good they may do, however, hierarchies are inevitably authoritarian.

Rigid, old corporate styles, like the inflexible steel and stone headquarters that symbolized them, are fast becoming quaint vestiges of things past. Many of today's managers are beginning to understand that encouraging some behaviors at the edge of accepted organizational propriety can actually help their companies achieve success in this new competitive environment. And hot groups are helping organizations do just that. Based on years of observing and participating in hot groups, the authors describe the conditions under which such groups flourish, the behaviors they exhibit, the type of leadership they require, and the benefits they bring. For those executives who believe that more hot groups might help stir the hearts and minds of their people, there remains the question of how to make them happen. The authors offer suggestions that managers can follow to create an environment fertile enough to allow hot groups to grow.

An information technology, involving the computer processing of information, mathematical programming for decision making, and simulation of higher order thinking through computer programs, will have far-reaching impact on managerial organization. Fewer people will be able to do more work and management will be able to deal with engineering, logistic, and marketing problems more effectively. Psychological problems may arise from the depersonalization of relationships within management, and education will more often take place outside of the organization.