He basically pointed out that most organizations function from a top-down perspective.  A CEO is considered to be the supreme ruler of a corporation, and his/her leadership is rounded-out by a group of C-Level officers.  Then, a level of Vice Presidents manages a group of Directors who, in turn, manage the Managers of the organization.  These people monitor the Individual Contributors, who perform their functions with the help of the Supporting Staff.  This military-ranking style of leadership is extremely prevalent in our American society, but is it actually effective?  Does it lend itself to maximum productivity and success?

The theory that my classmate was quoting was nothing new or elementary.  Servant Leadership is a well-known practice that is prevalent elsewhere in the world.  While top-down management

might be the best practice for military organizations, most corporate environments are much different.

The images to the left are taken directly from the WhatCounts Sales Training Manual.  Consider this model for your company:  of all the stakeholders in your organization, is there a more important entity than your customer base?  I would contest that there is not.  So, if your customers are your most important stakeholders, then your potential customers would easily be a close second.  If this is true, then who in your organization interfaces with these two groups the most?  Your client services representatives, your salespeople, your field marketing representatives, etc.  Following this logic, if these members of your company can be put in a position of inevitable success, then the success of your other stakeholders should also be ensured.  Thus, the Individual Contributors of your organization belong not at the bottom of the pyramid, but at the top.

Continuing with this thought, the Managers, Directors, Vice Presidents and Supporting Staff would coordinate all of their efforts to maximize the success potential of the Individual Contributors on each of their respective teams.  For example, a sales organization would be structured to eliminate as many non-selling activities from each sales representative's plate as possible.  This would be the primary responsibility of the members of the sales management team.  Then, at the bottom of the pyramid would be a group of C-Level mentors who can "see the forest through the trees" and who can guide the middle tier Supporting Team to effectively help their Individual Contributors. 

In this type of model, it becomes much easier to make organizational scalability decisions.  It's no longer a question of how many people a particular person can manage.  It's a question of how many people a particular person can support.  If the right systems and a healthy culture are in place, a person can support more people than he/she could manage.  Furthermore, there are less layers of management needed in the "upside-down" model than the militaristic model.  Overall, a much more streamlined organization can be built with higher pound-for-pound results from each Individual Contributor.

I recently had the honor of accepting a step down in the WhatCounts upside-down pyramid, and I am excited to have the opportunity to support more people over time.  Try to employ this type of model in your organization.  Someday, I hope to see you all at the bottom.