Kiss the Ring: Hierarchy Matters (It’s not what you think)
We all know how important it is to have a healthy respect for our superiors. They are the ones that sign off on your paycheck, after all.
Yet hierarchy is not just about where you rank in relation to your boss. It’s also about having a clear view of the organizational structure and where you stand in relation to other people within that structure.
In this post we will cover why it's so important for everyone - from executives to entry level staff - to understand what their own role in the hierarchy looks like, and how they fit into the bigger picture of the organization as a whole.
When it comes to respect, both from others and from ourselves, it is vital that we understand where we fit into the hierarchy of the organization.
To begin with, let’s look at a basic framework for the hierarchy of an organization. We will use this as a starting point for understanding what you should know about yourself and how you fit into the overall picture before moving on to some specific suggestions.
Let's imagine an imaginary organization whose website has a news page that publishes new information about recent events in their field every Monday. The news is clearly organized under three separate headings: General Interest, Current Events and a number of other categories (more on this in a moment).
The CURRENT EVENTS section, which would be the one most frequently read, is separated from the other two by being shown on top of the page, in red text and with a large picture.
To continue our imaginary exercise, let’s say that the editor of this news page is having a bad week because he keeps forgetting to publish anything. He knows that if he doesn't come up with something soon his boss will chew him out for being so unreliable.
So he decides to put out a call for help from his readers, writing a post on his blog inviting people to submit their best news items.
It is then that one of his readers decides to submit a post about two employees at their company who have been in trouble for having an affair.
The writer of the post starts by stating, "Everyone knows how important it is to respect other people. But what if I found out that two of my colleagues were having an affair?" She goes on to explain how she had no idea about this relationship until she received a phone call from one of the employees about the whole thing, and because she was a junior employee she felt obliged to keep quiet.
"I don’t know how to tell my boss about this... It can't be true, right? They're both married!"
This comment is met with a number of comments from other readers who agree with her. A few other people try to point out the difference between morality and legality, saying something like, "Is it really any of your business?" But the majority are in agreement with her.
The reader who posted the article then decides to take it one step further by posting something along the lines of:
"I had no idea how many other people were also in the same position I was! I will never feel comfortable about talking about these sorts of things again. I don’t want to be judged for being loyal to my employer. I had no idea how many other people were also in the same position I was! I will never feel comfortable about talking about these sorts of things again. If this happens again, I will leave the company."
The comments are on all sides shouting that the report is totally false, but it is too late. Her post has gone viral and many people have shared it as if it's true. Two of her colleagues have been made to feel like crap by having their relationship questioned, and even one of them (the guilty one) has felt insecure enough over what she did to consider resigning from the job.
The question, of course, is how to avoid these kinds of situations.
In this example, it all came down to how a single reader understood the relationship between herself and the higher-ups in her company.
While she assumed that her superiors would appreciate her loyalty for keeping quiet about things she had no business in getting involved with, she completely overlooked the fact that her bosses might want to run the story on their own news page.
She also misunderstood what kind of relationship she had with those bloggers who specialised in "going after" other people's dirty laundry.
In other words, she had a clear picture of her own position in the hierarchy (lower on the totem pole than the editors) and she knew that the higher ups were interested in having a say in what went on at her workplace.
So now, when we talk about how to avoid situations like this from arising, let's clarify how people’s relationships to their bosses, with each other and with their peers matter.
Let's begin by looking at how an entry level employee fits into an overall organizational structure.
Regardless of where you work in an organization, you must understand what your role is as an employee so you can know what is expected of you at every stage.
The following diagram shows a diagram of the organization you are going to work in.
It's not every day that you come across diagrams like this that are so well-organized and easy to understand. But it serves as a perfect illustration of the hierarchy, so we need to pay attention to it.
On the left, at the bottom of the diagram, we have yourselves and those who work under you - your manager, coworkers and bosses. They are identified as "V" for VENDOR or "B" for BROTHER . The person who is higher up than you on the totem pole is indicated by an uppercase letter, while those lower down by a lowercase one. Any reader who receives some kind of income from the organization is considered as a VENDOR , while those who may be involved in other ways but with no financial gain are called BROTHERS .
This all seems fairly easy to understand.
But then we have the one little detail that can throw you off: everyone who works in this organization is classified as either a BROTHER or a VENDOR . This means that there is no distinction between employees, bosses and the people who own and run things (in this case, Brother 2 and Brother 1).
It's not about status or anything like that, it's just about which readers are financially dependant on the organization.
Conclusion
It may seem confusing and even a little biased, but it is no different from the way things are in Japan compared to other countries.
The same principles apply to each and every organization, large or small. And in companies that involve more than just one person operating under one name, a manager's relationship with the owner (sometimes his brother) has to be considered as well.
I'm not saying that there are no exceptions to this rule - maybe certain businesses don't have bosses because they don't have a boss - but at the end of the day it all comes down to relationships.