The Technological Republic — Chapter 11: The Improvisational Startup does a good job articulating what I'd want my team to feel like.
This is my note to help me documents my thinking. To avoid this turning into a messy blob of thoughts (haha), I’m grouping it into three sections: Improv, Ochestration, and Artistry.
Improv
Let's talk about status or if you will, pecking order. The chapter kicks off with a reference to Keith Johnstone’s book on improvisational theater. Johnstone's point of view on status, and approach to exposing pecking orders around us. The seperation of "the status you are and status you play",
is essential to maneuver effectively on the stage and in the world — to not be limited by the attempts of others to constrain one’s freedom of movement from a business or social perspective, or at a minimum to become more aware of those attempts at domination and respond accordingly.
Understanding this distinction helps you move faster, collaborate better, and adapt to change naturally. You're not rigidly tied to a single persona, title, or role. You shift, improvise, and respond fluidly to whatever the moment demands.
And that’s important because your role and environment aren't static. Your work and contributions are improvisational by nature, sometimes messy, chaotic, but at their best, fluid and adaptive. This flexibility in how you carry yourself leads naturally to how you navigate hierarchy.
I'll through this in, even if others try to dominate, belittle, or control you socially or professionally, you stay aware that the “status” you show is just a performance — your true self remains independent.
Ochestration
Bringing this dynamic into teams, what you want is an orchestra. As soon as there’s more than a handful of people in the room, there’s this temptation to “bring order” — usually by adding layers of hierarchy (pecking order).
Most of the time, it’s just theater. Hierarchy is often created for its own sake, without any real intrinsic value. So you end up with senior managers managing managers who manage a team. Obviously, I can empathize with how and why this became the default solution, but I think there’s a better option.
An orchestra would have a coordinator (CEO) and a group of exceptionally talented musicians (engineers, designers), all directed to create art.
The different option is to create a culture that avoids these layers of management. It's to create an orchestra. Of course, there still needs to be some hierarchy but one that’s not rigid and adapts easily. It's at a cost. For example, it might be harder to easily identify who's in charge.
Alex Karp (CEO of Palantir) puts it beautifully:
The benefit of being somewhat unclear or ambiguous about who is leading commercial sales in Scandinavia,
for example, is that maybe that somebody should be you
...
The point is only that voids or perceived voids within an organization, in our experience, have repeatedly had more benefits than costs — often being filled by ambitious and talented leaders who see gaps and want to step up, but who might otherwise have been cowed into submission for fear of venturing onto someone else’s turf.
Sometimes ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. It leaves open space for people to step into leadership naturally — not because their job title says they can, but because they see a need and choose to fill it.
Over-defining every responsibility, every border, every permission level? It doesn’t scale leadership — it smothers it.
Artistry
Often times exceptionally talented individuals have zero interest in playing the pecking order game; consciously or unconsciously.
Building an environment where real talent thrives can look like leaning hard into "ochestra" ideology. (Yes, it creates some chaos. Yes, it can be uncomfortable sometimes.) But, just like with improv and orchestration, the flexibility and space it creates far outweigh the downsides.
I like the Don't ask for permission, say sorry after mantra. See a gap. Step in. Just do it.
In some sense, what we want to be are artists (that hacking spirit). Not just trying to climb the ladder. To be busy creating creating the sweet stuff and there's a greated chance of that happening outside the traditional corporate machinery (ahem, layers and layers of middle management).
These are just my notes from that chapter — I can't claim credit for articulating it this well. If you're interested, I definitely recommend reading the book yourself.