Growing Teams Without Hierarchy: Flat Structures for Teams Up to 30

Steps to Growing Teams Without Hierarchy and Implementing the Advice Decision-Making Model with ~30 Team Members

Step 1:
Establish a standing employee-management work group as a channel for staff and the leadership apparatus (no board involvement) to discuss significant policy issues.

Convening Protocol + Rotating Stewardship

• Create a simple protocol: any staff member can propose a topic that triggers convening (e.g., policy change, workflow disruption, or staff concern).
• Use a shared calendar or internal dashboard to publish meeting dates and steward assignments.
• Rotating Conveners: Use a rotating convener model—each quarter, a different member is responsible for scheduling meetings and collecting agenda items. This avoids power hoarding and distributes responsibility.
• Open Nomination Process: Allow staff to nominate themselves or others to serve, with clear term limits (e.g., 6 months). This builds ownership and avoids gatekeeping.
• Invite staff to respond or reflect asynchronously to keep the loop open without requiring full participation.
• Define member roles clearly: not “representatives” but “stewards of feedback and clarity.” Therefore, work group members must actively solicit and accept feedback from across the organization on the topics that come before the group. Additionally, the structure of the group should capture the need for functions, i.e., a note-taker to capture the outcomes of the work group. 
• If applicable, set term limits (e.g., 6–12 months) and rotate membership to prevent burnout and distribute emotional labor.

The design of the work group should be formally adopted and inserted into the organization’s written policies and employee handbook in order to demonstrate the organization’s commitment to a culture that respects employee input. The design should also address whether this work group will be the primary employee management work group and under what, if any, circumstances will additional work groups be established.  

Step 2:
Determine the scope of the work group. The language that establishes the work group should be clear that the purpose of the group is to give and advice and make recommendations. The language should address or explain the types of issues and decisions that will not come before the group.

Transparent Communication: 

• After each meeting, publish a brief summary: topics discussed, advice given, and next steps. Use a shared channel (e.g., email, intranet, Slack).
• Include rationale from leadership when advice is accepted, modified, or declined—this models trust and clarity.
• Embed language in policies that specifies when the group must be convened (e.g., “Any proposed change to employee benefits, scheduling, or disciplinary policy must be reviewed by the work group before implementation.”)

Step 3:
The design should make clear what the group is not and its limitations beginning with unequivocally stating that full consensus or agreement is not required. Additionally, the declarations should make provisions for minimally revisiting the same issue multiple times, and established time frames for recommendations.

Peer-Led Orientation

• Develop a short, plain-language guide explaining the Advice Process, group purpose, and norms (e.g., “Advice ≠ consensus,” “Feedback is not veto”).
• Pair new members with a peer mentor for their first cycle to model feedback-seeking and boundary-respecting behavior.
• Include real examples of past decisions and how advice shaped them to build institutional memory.

Step 4:
To sustain trust and drive continuous improvement, the work group embeds mutual accountability rituals that ensure advice is not only solicited but also transparently tracked and acted upon.

Mutual Accountability

• Introduce a quarterly reflection ritual: group members assess how well advice was solicited, received, and acted upon.
• Use a simple rubric (e.g., “Was feedback sought from affected parties?” “Was rationale shared transparently?”).
• Allow and create a mechanism for anonymous input from staff on how the group is functioning—this protects psychological safety and flags misalignment early.
• After each meeting, publish a brief summary: topics discussed, advice given, and next steps. Use a shared channel (e.g., email, intranet, Slack).
• Include rationale from leadership when advice is accepted, modified, or declined—this models trust and clarity.

 

As organizations grow toward 30 employees, the complexity of roles, relationships, and decision points multiply. Informal check-ins risk getting lost, so you need formalized convening triggers, written policies, and scheduled reflection rituals to keep the Advice Process consistent and visible. Distributed stewardship and rotating roles guard against power hoarding and burnout, while transparent communication and anonymous feedback channel preserve psychological safety.

When Flatish Structures Strain and Limited Hierarchy Helps

Flat or flatish models falter when:

• Urgency & Scale Collide: Critical or time-boxed decisions need a clear owner.
• Complex Dependencies: High interlock among functions makes consensus slow.
• Regulatory/Governance Needs: Compliance often mandates sign-off authorities.
• Role Ambiguity: Overlapping scopes breed confusion and finger-pointing.

In these contexts, introducing a modest hierarchy—such as domain leads, escalation paths, or decision stewards—reestablishes accountability and accelerates throughput. The goal is not command-and-control but rather a scaffold that preserves as much autonomy and advice-seeking as feasible while ensuring clarity and momentum. In short, the organization must shift from growing a team without hierarchy to growing a team with only the degree of hierarchy we need.

Organizational Culture and Decisions Made With Intention

Throughout this guide, we’ve offered a structured Advice Process for growing teams without hierarchy with up to 30 people alongside a lighter-weight version for teams of up to 15. Both approaches center on seeking input from those affected and those with expertise. As headcount grows, adding flatish groupings or modest escalation paths prevents advice from becoming tokenized or stalled. These models empower organizations of any size to distribute authority, uphold transparency, and maintain relational accountability.

Embedding either model successfully depends on strong cultural guardrails. Advice does not equal consensus—you must reinforce that distinction at every step. In the absence of formal HR, norms for healthy disagreement, principled dissent, and repair are critical to preserve psychological safety. Rotating roles and shared facilitation help ensure diverse voices contribute authentically rather than symbolically.

Finally, remember that implementing a new decision-making style is an iterative journey. Regular reflection rituals, transparent communication of outcomes, and visible stewardship keep the process alive and adaptive. By balancing structure with autonomy, teams can make decisions that are informed, inclusive, and aligned with their purpose.

Review our Leadership Alignment Toolkit for other aids to support your leadership goals.