Get rid of your boss. Share a story instead.

In our dialogue Frederic Laloux (Reinventing Organizations), Jos de Blok (Buurtzorg) and Lisa Gill (Tuff Leadership) all spoke about it.

In other conversations Tom van der Lubbe (Viisi), Antonio Boadas (Haier), and many others echoed it in their own ways.

Each of them pointed to something deeply human: that we don’t truly lead through structures, roles, or procedures.

We lead through the stories we tell and the stories that take root.

For quite some time now, I’ve been fascinated by the role stories play in shaping how organizations feel, behave, and evolve.

That interest recently grew into a ​long essay​ I wrote for the Italian magazine Future4Work.

It ended up becoming… well, a long read. The kind you will have to settle into.

What follows is the English version of that piece.

So make yourself comfortable. Give yourself 15 minutes. Lean back, relax, and enjoy the journey.

For the others with less time:

TL;DR Most organizations don’t run on org charts. They run on stories. If you want to replace hierarchy with real self-management, you must first replace the old story with a new one.

Every organization tells a tale

In his book ​Zen and the Art of Organising Work​, Dr. Steve Morlidge throws down a riddle:

“What is the fastest way to discover you’re part of an organization?”

“Break a rule,” he says.

If nothing happens, you were never really inside.

But if you get punished, corrected, sidelined, ignored, or quietly pushed out, then you’ve just found the boundaries of an organization.

It made me smile. Rebels learn this early. The moment you challenge a norm, you realize organizations are everywhere.

And while organizations are everywhere, and are all made up of people, they vary enormously.

They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.

Not just as companies, but also as families, schools, friend groups, neighborhoods, and so forth.

All are organizations. You simply can’t escape them.

Morlidge writes that any human collective becomes an organization the moment it starts enforcing expectations. That is, every organization comes with its own codes of conduct.

Some are written; most are not.

Because no matter how formal the structure looks on paper, beneath it lives a web of unwritten rules, subtle obligations, tacit rights, and silent expectations that shape how people behave.

Those unwritten rules travel through stories. Stories of what is admired, tolerated, discouraged, or punished. Stories of how to belong how to contribute, how to succeed, and how not to screw things up.

This is what organizations are made of. Not charts or processes, but the stories people tell each other.

And once you listen well to these stories, you realize: every organization lives inside its own story.

The stories that make an organization "itself"

Morlidge explains that organizations, just like people, keep changing themselves, yet remain recognizably themselves.

He encourages us to think about ourselves as human beings: our cells are constantly dying and renewing; we grow, we age, we change shape.

Yet throughout all that change, we never lose the sense of being “us.”

And it’s not only we who feel that continuity. Other people recognize us too. Often so instantly that they can tell when we are acting “out of character.”

We usually call this our identity: a steady thread of purpose, belief, and behavior that stays recognizable even as everything else shifts.

Yes, part of that identity is physical. But most of it is invisible. It’s what we stand for, what we value, and how we tend to act.

This is what others recognize as “our way of being.”

It is the same with organizations. They have physical boundaries, but it also has an identity made of purpose, principles, and stories.

These show up in how decisions are made, how goals are set, what people consider acceptable or out of bounds, and in the choices an organization makes when it faces uncertainty.

One of the most important roles of organizations, then, is not to direct every action but to share stories that illustrate:

“This is who we are. This is what we will not do. And here is how we choose among competing options when there’s no obvious answer.”

Morlidge argues that healthy organizations, like healthy people, don’t need constant correction.

They need a clear sense of identity, a shared compass that helps people act consistently without being told what to do.

When the identity is strong and governance is clear, central interventions are rare.

Yet organizations don’t start with a blank page. They inherit stories. Old, heavy stories. Stories that continue to shape who people think and act, long after the original reasons have disappeared.

And despite decades of management theory, one story still dominates almost everywhere.

The old story we still live in

Most workplaces live inside that same old story. A very simple and powerful story.

The story of the pyramid.

The story of managers and non-managers, of bosses and workers. The boss decides; the worker executes. The boss protects; the worker needs protection.

It’s a story of hierarchical power in a world of job titles, budgets, and ranks.

A story built on the belief that the higher your rank, the more power, freedom, and money you deserve.

Most companies that try to “flatten” themselves start by changing the pyramid.

Not the story, but the structure. They redraw the org chart, remove layers of management, and distribute authority.

That’s a good start, but it’s only the start. Changing the structure without changing the story is never enough.

What truly separates successful flat organizations from failed experiments is not just how they redesign the pyramid, but why they do it.

They operate from a different management philosophy: a different set of assumptions about what people are like, how work should be coordinated, and what makes organizations thrive.

In other words, they rewrite the narrative people live by.

They don’t merely install a new operating system; they cultivate new stories about what it means to be responsible, fair, and human at work.

These stories are mostly invisible, yet deeply powerful.

They reveal the worldview and management philosophy of the people inside the organization: their fundamental beliefs about human nature.

These shared stories quietly shape how people think, act, and relate to one another. They define what is right and wrong, admirable and out of bounds.

In doing so, they replace the command-and-control logic of the pyramid with something far more powerful: self-initiative and peer control grounded in moral agreement.

The three stories that replace the boss

Over the last decade, I’ve visited hundreds of organizations that have abandoned traditional hierarchy, and have spoken with both their founders and many of their members.

With some of them (Buutzorg, Viisi, Haier, and many others) I’ve been in regular contact for years.

The same lesson emerges: when people share a story, they don’t need a boss.

When people share an alternative management philosophy, coordination and control happen through shared meaning rather than managerial oversight.

It is stories that form the invisible infrastructure of flat organizations. The stories hold the distributed organization together.

These stories are not random.

They take three recognizable, yet fundamentally different, forms:

• Stories of communities bound by belonging and solidarity;
• Stories of peer groups coordinating through reciprocity and mutual commitment;
• Stories of entrepreneurial startups competing and collaborating on internal marketplaces.

Together, they reveal that the future of work will not be decided by structure alone, but by philosophy.

By the guiding story an organization chooses to live by.

Through language and shared narrative, people build their internal compass: who they are, what they value, and why their work matters.

Let’s tell some of these stories.

"We take care of each other"

The first alternative management philosophy is built on the moral foundation of solidarity, the idea that we are all responsible for one another.

It is a worldview that treats the organization as a community, not a machine.

Here, management is not a function or a hierarchy; it is a shared human practice of care.

This philosophy expects everyone in the organization to contribute unconditionally to the common good, as if they were part of one big family.

It is the story of people guided by belonging, unity, and altruism.

It assumes that human beings are not primarily self-interested individuals who need to be monitored, but caring members of a community who can be trusted to do the right thing.

No company expresses this better than Buurtzorg, the Dutch home-care organization with hundreds of autonomous nursing teams.

When founder Jos de Blok tells why he started Buurtzorg, he doesn’t begin with strategy but with feeling. “I never wanted to have a company,” he says. “I just wanted to change the healthcare system.”

Before founding Buurtzorg, De Blok worked for 15 years as a nurse. His stories are filled with moments of compassion that shaped his philosophy.

“I’ve taken care of young people,” he recalls, “of a woman, 34, who had cancer and two children. As a society, we should take care of this family in such a way that, when you look back, you can say: this was the best care possible. That’s what I want. For every vulnerable person to receive the support they need.”

For De Blok, this moral principle of care is foundational.

“When I started in the eighties,” he says, “there were no managers. You had your own neighborhood, and you used your own judgment. That was the ideal time.” But as healthcare became professionalized, it filled with bureaucracy. “You went from one, to two, to three, to four layers of management. Everything was divided into pieces. It had an enormous impact.”

Buurtzorg was born as a reaction to that fragmentation. De Blok and a small group of nurses rebuilt home care around solidarity and community.

They created small, self-managing teams with a simple purpose: deliver the best possible care.

“Everybody wants to manage themselves,” De Blok says. “There are no people who don’t want to. If you create the right environment, people take responsibility.”

At Buurtzorg, that environment is deeply human. Teams decide everything through open dialogue and consensus.

“We only take new colleagues if everybody agrees,” one Buurtzorg nurse explains. “It takes longer, but then everyone stands behind the decision.”

Consensus here is not just a decision-making process; it is belonging. It reminds people that every voice matters and that the group’s integrity depends on inclusion.

Stories of care circulate constantly and act as Buurtzorg’s moral infrastructure. When health insurers once refused to fund Buurtzorg’s rapid growth, De Blok posted the dilemma on the company’s internal blog.

Hundreds of nurses replied: “We’ll just take some more steps. We’re not going to say no to patients.” They worked harder rather than compromise their values and ended the year with a positive result.

The episode became an internal lesson: moral motivation always outweighs financial incentives.

Control at Buurtzorg happens not through measurement but through relationships. Not by targets, but by purpose.

“We never think in targets,” De Blok says. “It’s a disease to think in targets. You should think in purpose. What you want to achieve in a positive way. We should be more compassionate about people than this whole stupid idea of targets.”

The moral logic extends to how people treat each other, also when they leave the community.

When two young nurses from Amsterdam approached De Blok one evening with a plan that would take them beyond Buurtzorg (an idea to connect elderly people with spare rooms to students and young nurses in need of housing) De Blok didn’t hold them back. He encouraged their initiative, helped them draw up contracts, and supported their plan, even though it meant they might leave Buurtzorg.

For him, that was no loss.

“If they find another important role in society,” he says, “that too is success.”

This story became another lesson: an illustration of Buurtzorg’s philosophy of care: that doing good for society is more important than retaining talent.

Still, De Blok is not naïve about community life.

“The biggest risk,” he warns, “is the dominant people who want to do everything.”

The antidote, he says, is not hierarchy but honesty.

“It’s much better to build an open culture where people feel safe to share what goes wrong. Then they can learn from it.”

In this philosophy, management is not a layer, it’s a behavior shared by everyone.

Leaders act as stewards, not controllers. They cultivate connection, trust, and collective meaning.

As De Blok puts it, “At home, nobody tells you what to do. You decide together. It’s natural.”

When I ask him what he thinks about traditional management, he doesn’t hesitate: “I see management as a disease. It started 100 years ago when we thought we needed to organize people like machines. That was one of the biggest mistakes in history.”

The result of this alternative management philosophy based on solidarity is an organization that feels less like a company and more like a neighborhood.

A place where people look after each other, where purpose and humanity overlap, and where management is community.

"Quid pro quo"

The second alternative management philosophy is built on the moral foundation of equality, on the principle of quid pro quo.

These are no longer stories of gifts or unconditional giving. Here, contributions are mutual and conditional.

Management, in this story, feels like a partnership: a voluntary association among equals, bound by reciprocal commitments.

It is a philosophy based on reciprocity, told through stories of tit-for-tat, of making and keeping promises, of balancing give and take.

Even when those commitments are honored later in time, what matters is that the balance is kept. It is about making and fulfilling promises to peers, associates, and partners. Like friends do among themselves.

These are stories of equality, fairness, and consent.

The metaphors shift from community to partnership, from family to friends, from belonging to equality.

This is the management philosophy embraced by most of the flat organizations today.

It is the story told in places like Viisi, the Dutch financial-services firm organized through Holacracy.

These companies are built as partnerships where people see one another as equal peers with equal say and equal vote.

Viisi’s founder, Tom van der Lubbe, often compares their 50-person company to the Swiss federal system of cantons.

In Switzerland, each canton enjoys significant autonomy as long as it respects the shared constitution. Decisions are made at the lowest possible level, where the relevant knowledge resides.

At Viisi, each team operates as a circle, expected to act in the same way.

Although Viisi uses Holacracy as its structural framework, it doesn’t prescribe behavior or values.

“Holacracy in itself is dead,” says one member of Viisi, also called Viisonairs. “It doesn’t do anything. It’s just a toolbox for a group of people with a similar worldview. It always depends on the people. On what they want to achieve as an organization, on their purpose.”

For Viisi, that purpose is clear: to make the financial sector healthier and more sustainable.

They aim to do so without managers, by dividing work into roles, each with its own purpose.

People self-select themselves into multiple roles and make decisions by consent (not consensus). Circles elect “lead links” to coordinate, and those roles rotate regularly.

“It’s good that roles rotate,” says a Viisonair. “It makes people look at the business from different perspectives. It builds mutual respect.”

That doesn’t mean there are no leaders.

A Viisonair recalls a moment of crisis: “Viisi went through a very big crisis at the end of 2022. We basically said: ‘This is the time we need a new lead link, someone with crisis management qualities.’ So, we elected one of the co-founders who guided us through a very difficult time. Afterwards, when the crisis passed, someone else was elected, someone better suited to rebuild the business. It’s about trusting people’s common sense to vote for the right person. And those votes just continue to happen.”

This moral principle of equality is perhaps best captured by a single rule that runs through the entire company, its moral compass for collective behavior.

“We basically have one rule: the Golden Rule. Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself,” says a Viisonair. “It’s so simple, but also so broad that in almost any situation you can use it. Most things we just do with that rule in mind. You just ask: ‘How would I like to be treated if I were in the other person’s shoes?’”

In this way, the Golden Rule replaces policies, performance reviews, and salary negotiations with a moral compass everyone understands.

One of Viisi’s most emblematic stories emerged during the COVID-19 crisis. When lockdowns disrupted work and childcare, the team created what they called the traffic light system. Every employee could mark themselves as green, orange, or red. Green meant you could work normally; orange meant you could only work half-time (for example, because you had small children at home); red meant you couldn’t work at all.

Instead of punishing absence or rewarding productivity, Viisi used the system to build mutual understanding.

Those in “green” voluntarily worked extra to support colleagues in “orange” or “red,” trusting that when their own time came, others would do the same.

That story became a lesson within Viisi. A living example of their partnership model in action.

As a Viisonair explains, “These kinds of things only work when you have reciprocity. When people help others only because they know they’ll be helped when their time comes.”

Yet the very thing that makes this philosophy work, equality, can also create blind spots.

“In very equal groups,” a Viisonair admits, “people sometimes become too polite. Underperformance is never addressed.”

Equality can slip into comfort and avoidance unless the story keeps reminding people that fairness requires honesty, not sameness.

In these partnership narratives, control does not vanish; it changes form. Instead of being held by the few, it is distributed among the many.

The story itself, of equality, reciprocity, and mutual commitments, becomes the constitution everyone follows.

"Become the master of your life"

The third alternative management philosophy is not built on stories of unconditional care (as in Buurtzorg), nor on promises and reciprocal commitments (as in Viisi).

Its moral foundation is different. Here, the guiding belief is that every person should become the master of their life: to own their destiny, generate value, and reap the rewards of their initiative.

In this worldview, work is not a communal gift or a partnership promise. It is an entrepreneurial act.

This philosophy centers on value creation: the conviction that everyone can, should, and will create value if given the freedom and the market mechanisms to do so.

Opportunities aren’t handed out. They’re discovered. Contribution is not evaluated by peers or managers but by the marketplace itself. And rewards flow proportionally. Those who create more value receive more value. Those who don’t, don’t.

The stories emerging from this philosophy sound less like tales of families or friendships, and more like stories of traders on a bustling marketplace.

Stories of bids and contracts, of supply and demand, of users rewarding what serves them and ignoring what doesn’t.

It is the narrative of performance, competition, proportional rewards, and entrepreneurial responsibility.

Nowhere is this philosophy more visible than at Haier, the Chinese home-appliance giant that transformed itself into a vast network of microenterprises.

Inside Haier, people rarely call themselves “employees.” They describe themselves as entrepreneurs, running their own microenterprises inside a much larger ecosystem.

Across tens of thousands of people, each microenterprise acts as a kind of startup: designing products, bidding for internal contracts, competing for resources, and sharing profits based on the value they create for users.

“Our management philosophy is not about rules or regulations,” a Haier entrepreneur says. “It’s a philosophy. We say your salary is paid by the user. If you create value for them, you deserve a proportional share of that value.”

The logic is simple: people don’t need to be managed; they need a market.

On this market entrepreneurs and their microenterprises publicly declare their goals: for example, how many fridges they plan to sell, how much revenue they aim for, and how rewards will be shared. Other entrepreneurs and microenterprises can join, compete, or invest.

Success is visible. So is failure.

A Haier entrepreneur explains organizational life as follows: “Every year I talk to all the microenterprises and pitch my business. If they don’t choose to work with me, my microenterprise might disappear. But I also have the freedom to serve others, even outside the company. The market judges your work. If people don’t like HR’s service, they can hire another HR microenterprise. Or find an external consultant. You must compete. Some people say it’s stressful. I think it’s healthy. The consumer never stops demanding. So why should we?”

Haier’s founder, Zhang Ruimin, uses a biological metaphor: “The company is a rainforest. Some species survive, others disappear, and new ones emerge. The market is not ruthless. It is wise. It rewards initiative, creativity, and user focus.”

A Haier entrepreneur sees the corporation more as an incubator: “The company gives you the legal, marketing, and HR infrastructure,” he says. “But you must focus on the market. Create ideas. Serve real users. That is your job.”

Another Haier entrepreneur puts it more personally: “The closer you are to the consumer, the better human being you become.”

In this moral world, the governing principle is proportion. Give value, receive value. Freedom is earned, not granted.

“People should follow their dreams,” a Haier entrepreneur says, “and deliver on them. If they don’t, they must live with the consequences.”

This philosophy relies on market dynamics not as an end state but as a tool for co-creation.

The goal is not only to satisfy consumers but to merge with them: to turn users into collaborators who help design products and services.

“When your consumers become your R&D center,” a Haier entrepreneur explains, “you create a real competitive advantage. We don’t fall in love with our ideas. We fall in love with the people we serve.”

Stories of success, and failure, circulate constantly.

But unlike Buurtzorg’s moral tales of solidarity or Viisi’s stories of reciprocity, Haier’s narratives celebrate generativity: how much value someone creates in the market.

One internal classic is the RV air-conditioning story.

After Covid, RVs surged in popularity. Haier wasn’t serving that market. But a small group of engineers saw an opportunity. They hacked a home air conditioner, adapted it to fit an RV, invested some of their own money, and showed up at the office with a fully branded prototype. They pitched the idea to other microenterprises, raised funds, and built a new business. Not because management told them to, but because the opportunity existed and they seized it.

Another story, frequently repeated, is the origin of Haier Biomedical.

A single employee noticed that Haier’s low-temperature technology could be repurposed for medical applications. He formed a microenterprise, built a connected refrigeration system for laboratories, and soon attracted 67 colleagues who collectively invested about 100 million yuan. Within two years, the venture grew large enough to become a listed company. Rewards were shared transparently and proportionally.

In Haier’s moral universe, this is what success looks like: initiative rewarded, value distributed, users served.

These stories become Haier’s internal mythology. They show that at Haier the market becomes the boss.

Yet insiders are not blind to the risks.

“This is about customers and jungles,” a Haier entrepreneur cautions. “Not all species survive. But it’s a good Darwin.”

In this philosophy, the story people live by is clear: Your freedom depends on your value creation. Your rewards reflect your contribution.

And your future is determined not by a boss, your peers, or your community. But by the users you serve.

Three different management philosophies

What these stories show is that it is possible to break through the hierarchical monoculture cultivated by decades of MBA-thinking.

They reveal that there are different ways to see the world, and different ways to think about management, self-direction, and collective coordination.

These worldviews can be integrated into alternative management models fit for a more sustainable and more human future. It are alternative management philosophies built by people who simply chose a different perspective.

They act on what they believe matters most in life, guided by a coherent set of principles.

They tell themselves a different story. Honest, grounded stories about what they value and why.

Shared inside their organizations, these stories create distinct moral economies: invisible systems of self-accountability and peer control.

Because these stories are told and retold, in meetings, messages, rituals, and daily interactions, they become a form of control.

• In communities, people regulate themselves through stories of solidarity and care.
• In partnerships, through stories of reciprocity and equality.
• In marketplaces, through stories of generativity and proportionality.

But these moral stories do more than regulate behavior.

They give it meaning.

They explain why people act the way they do.

As such storytelling replaces supervision. They make abstract principles tangible and remind people what it means to be a good member of the organization.

And what it means to be a “good member” takes three very different shapes.

“Flat communities” attract people with an altruistic social disposition: those who tend to maximize other’s outcomes, even at some cost to themselves.

Their natural sentence is: “I want you to do well, even if I don’t.” They give resources, time or credit away to help others succeed.

This philosophy is especially attractive in nonprofits, NGOs, charities and sectors like care and education.

Beyond Buurtzorg, examples include ZorgAccent, BuurtzorgT and Grupo Lacos.

The main risks of this philosophy, when taken to the extreme, are that it can drift toward cult-like cohesion, avoidance of conflicts because issues feel to personal to address, or nepotism.

“Flat partnerships” attract people with a cooperative or prosocial disposition: those who tend to maximize joint outcomes and equality. They aim to outcomes that benefit both self and others.

“Let’s all do well together” is their guiding sentence. They choose options that create “fairness” and collective benefit.

This philosophy is present in the majority of the flat organizations that I know and forms the basis of progressive management models like Semco Style, Sociocracy, Holacracy, O2, and Nuevo Estilo de Relaciones (NER).

Beyond Viisi, examples include NER Group, Equal Experts, and Eppo, among many others.

The risks of this philosophy lie in the fact that these organizations can drift into “bro cultures,” or prisons of politeness where underperformance is never addressed.

They can also fall into the tit-for-tat trap; a self-reinforcing cycle where each side mirrors the other’s negative behavior, escalating conflict even though neither intends it.

“Flat markets” attract people with a competitive social disposition: those who maximize relative advantages over others and seek to outperform their peers, even at some cost to themselves.

“I want to win” is what they typically say.

Beyond Haier, examples include Disco Corp, Fajar Benua, and Gaiax.

The risk of this philosophy is that ruthless competition becomes fearless, or careless, competition, and that individuals or teams focus solely on their own success, losing sight of the prosperity of the collective.

The three alternative management philosophies clearly create three different shapes of what it means to be a good member of the organization.

As such, transforming a traditional workplace into a flat organization ultimately means changing how people see themselves, how they see one another, and how they relate internally and externally.

At its core, that transformation is a shift in narrative.

It is the moment a company stops asking, “Who is in charge?” and starts asking, “What story are we living by?”

Storytelling as a force of transformation

To conclude, when organizations move from hierarchy to self-management, the deepest shift is not in structure but in story.

The old narrative of control (someone must decide, others must comply) is replaced by new narratives of solidarity, reciprocity, and generativity.

Newly distributed autonomy needs to be anchored in collectively shared stories about what is “fair.”

And the more autonomy you create, the stronger and clearer that shared narrative needs to be.

This also means that, alongside changing structures and systems, people must first change themselves. Organizational transformation becomes dependent on personal growth.

You cannot turn a company into a flat organization if people don’t understand, and can’t apply, the philosophy and principles on which that flat form is based.

As Jos de Blok says: “Transformation is not a trick. It’s not an organizational structure thing. It’s a kind of consistent set of things that you need to understand and need to live by. It’s culture. It’s behavior. It’s a combination of how you see your role in the world and how you translate this into new ways of working. Moreover, it is about how you can change yourself.”

Transformation, then, begins not with design but with dialogue.

Before any structural change, these organizations talk about meaning, about what unites them and what they want to stand for.

The story is built collectively, not imposed. Once people share that story, structure follows more naturally.

Storytelling also builds resilience. When crises hit, the narrative provides continuity.

• At Buurtzorg, the belief in solidarity keeps humanity alive.
• At Viisi, the Golden Rule keeps reciprocity intact.
• At Haier, the entrepreneurial story fuels reinvention.

Of course, stories can harden.

• A marketplace can slip into ruthless competition.
• A partnership can drown in politeness.
• A community can slide into paternalism.

Healthy self-management depends on keeping the narrative alive: questioning it, evolving it, and refreshing it with new experiences.

So, the story needs attention every day.

Each conversation, each decision, each reflection either reinforces or rewrites the story the organization talks about itself.

That is why these companies invest so much in dialogue.

Not just to communicate decisions, but to co-create meaning.

In the end, flat organizations thrive not because they have fewer managers, but because they have stronger stories.

Their narratives act as invisible constitutions.

As moral infrastructures that guide behavior when no one is watching.

As Jabi Salcedo from NER Group once told me: “We don’t need bosses. You don’t have bosses in your family, you don’t have bosses in your group of friends, and still, you do a lot of things together.”

That sentence could have been spoken in any of these organizations. It captures the spirit of this new world of work.

A world held together not by hierarchy.

But by the stories people choose to live by.