Hierarchies Are Dead. Haier Built a Company Without Bosses.
Imagine working at a company where no one tells you what to do.
No managers breathing down your neck. No pointless performance reviews. No corporate ladder to climb.
This is the reality at Haier, the Chinese company that eliminated hierarchy and replaced it with an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been reviewing Haier’s Q&A transcripts from multiple Corporate Rebels Masterclasses. What we hear over and over again is the fact that Haier is a completely decentralized organization where traditional management doesn’t exist.
No bosses, just owners
At Haier, employees (internally called "entrepreneurs") don’t work in departments. They run self-managed microenterprises; small, independent businesses operating inside the larger Haier ecosystem.
- No one tells them what to do.
- No one assigns them work.
- No one manages their performance.
Instead, they compete for projects, form teams, and share profits based on results.
The key principle? Decisions are made by those closest to the problem.
If you work in a microenterprise, you and your fellow entrepreneurs:
- Decide who to hire and fire.
- Set your own compensation structure.
- Control the distribution of profits.
Chaos? No. A self-organizing system.
Without a rigid hierarchy, how does Haier avoid total chaos?
Through a system called EMCs (Ecosystem Micro-Communities). When several microenterprises need to collaborate on large projects, they form temporary alliances called EMCs.
- "Customer-facing microenterprises" identify market opportunities.
- "Solution microenterprises" provide the product, logistics, or technology needed.
- Profit-sharing is pre-agreed in a contract.
Once the project is complete, the EMC dissolves, and entrepreneurs move on to new opportunities.
What happens if you fail?
If a microenterprise doesn’t deliver results, it dissolves. Entrepreneurs don’t get fired. Instead, they:
- Move to another project.
- Start a new microenterprise.
- Learn from failure and iterate.
One Haier employee explained it perfectly: "You always look ahead instead of looking back. That is challenging for every culture. But it has to be like this."
Learn from Haier firsthand
Most companies claim they “empower employees.” Haier actually does it. No managers, no corporate politics, just radical autonomy and self-organization.
We study Haier’s model in-depth in our Masterclass on self-managing organizations.
Want to know how companies can thrive without hierarchy? Join us.
