Zappos is known for its quirky culture, and now the online footwear retailer plans to strip all management titles and oust any semblance of a top-down hierarchy, news website Quartz reported.
CEO Tony Hsieh said that the traditional corporate structure will be replaced by Holacracy (a term taken from the Greek word "holon," meaning a whole that is a part of a larger whole).
Zappos will now be a self-governing structure without managers or job titles. It will consist of various circles, within which employees can have different roles. The company will have up to 400 circles by December 2014, when it expects to complete the rollout, according to Quartz.
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Looking for ways to achieve more growth and transparency without more bureaucracy, Hsieh met last fall with the management consulting firm HolacracyOne.
"We're classically trained to think of 'work' in the traditional paradigm," John Bunch, co-leader of the transition at Zappos, told Quartz. "What [Holacracy] does is distribute leadership into each role. Everybody is expected to lead and be an entrepreneur in their own roles, and Holacracy empowers them to do so."
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Amazon acquired Zappos in 2009. With 1,500 employees, Zappos would be the largest company to incorporate Holacracy, Quartz said.
Read the full article here.