Our team intentionally avoids the old-school pyramid org chart.

That model concentrates authority at the top and pushes decisions upstream, turning progress into a waiting game while executives weigh options.

I’ve worked with plenty of organizations structured this way. Teams have to stop because a manager isn’t available. Decisions stall because someone insists on one more sign-off. When outcomes miss the mark, no one clearly owns the result because there are too many layers of shared responsibility.

If you need a clear example of the downside to the pyramid approach, look at the government.

All the layers of hierarchy manage risk – at the cost of speed and adaptability. That bureaucratic hierarchy is why so little actually gets done at the federal level – and it’s an approach that doesn’t serve the businesses we run either.

Our work at LANDCO NEXA spans different projects and locations, each with real constraints that change daily. A rigid hierarchy would slow our decisions and pull leaders away from what’s actually happening on the ground.

So we operate with a flatter structure.

We give people authority – and responsibility – to respond to their specific operating conditions. That ownership drives better decisions and stronger accountability over outcomes.

It also creates a better learning environment. People test ideas, adjust quickly, and improve faster because they spend their energy doing the work instead of navigating approval chains.

Over time, we’ve watched this approach outperform traditional hierarchies. That’s why, as often as possible, we choose to work with partners who operate the same way.

Mark Lester, Principal, LANDCO NEXA