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…top-down coordination of siloed efforts works only if those on top actually understand how everything will interact.

…coordinated goal-setting strategy [OKRs] is easy to say and very hard to do.

Without well-defined roles and responsibilities, it is hard to coordinate people and tasks quickly and smoothly.

…flatter structures can work for companies where no significant amount of coordination is required of managers. But they don’t work for most companies.

A well-designed hierarchy helps coordinate people and tasks. It lets the right hand cooperate with the left. It establishes routines, policies, and procedures – the rules of the game…

In a well-coordinated project or organization, every part of the plan comes together.

Coordination doesn’t happen by itself; it requires deliberate forethought, motivation, review, and revision.

Hierarchy represents an effort to solve the universal twin problems of coordination and cooperation faced by any social group.

…hierarchy is an unbeatable machine when it comes to coordinating a flow of activities at the lowest cost. Hierarchy is an instrument of efficiency rather than the opposite.

…hierarchy is by no means a panacea for every problem that an organization faces. Still, it is there for a reason: it helps get activities coordinated and people cooperating.