So here's an organizational conundrum that of course has probably been discussed at nauseam, but I want to hear y'all's thoughts about.
I see a few things as true, when it comes to organizations:
It's important for people who are putting in the effort and are dependent on organizational output to have a strong (proportional?) say in the organization's directional and business decisions.
Most organizations today concentrate power around those who are neither putting in most of the productive effort, nor are dependent on the organizational output for survival (read: rich executive class, and largely-disinterested-in-mission investment class)
"Flat" organizations often hide inherent power structures and can potentially let "shadow viziers" run amok without any kind of systemic limits.
"Flat" organizations typically spread power evenly across an organization, regardless of effort+dependence+responsibility. That is, a member who puts 90% of the work in, who has invested large amounts of their own money, who is ultimately going to be taking responsibility for legal and fiscal issues, and who is deeply invested in the success of the organization has an "equal vote" to a "drive-by" member who is only casually involved and not dependent on the organization. In fact, the latter can vastly outnumber the first one in many situations.
There should be a process for spreading the load away from the very few highly-dedicated members effectively: both in responsibility and benefits.
How do you resolve this? A "simple" board system suffers from the issue of concentrating power in the hands of the potentially-less-affected. A Sociocracy-style Circles system seems prone to "shadow viziers". So, both systems are vulnerable to power concentration, possibly leaving those who do all the work and who are most dependent on organizational success (and who are in most need of effecting change on how the organization treats them), out to dry.
My answer to all this has been historically to go with a Circles/Committees-style organization, where there's a Committee that, for example, includes the primary responsible parties, but still accepts representatives from other Committees. Essentially a board, except the Committee-"board" isn't able to impose, itself, how the other Committees do their own chartered work. So for example, the Organizational Committee couldn't tell the Technical Committee to make a certain change in a project, and things like payments/salaries would require full organizational approval, not just be determined by the Organizational Committee. But this... still doesn't seem satisfactory because it doesn't fully address "shadow viziers", or the issue high-contribution members not being given a fair shake for what they put in.
Thoughts?
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