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Patterns
Fiction Lab / PatternDystopian anti-pattern

The flat organisation with hidden hierarchy

Mechanism

Titles disappear while information, projects and reputation concentrate around network gatekeepers.

Enabling conditions

  • Formal roles are treated as inherently harmful
  • Allocation happens through private networks

Failure modes

  • Power becomes hard to challenge
  • Low-status work concentrates

Early signals

  • • A small group appears in most project starts
  • • Dissent is called cultural misfit

Countermeasures

  • • Map actual decision rights
  • • Make allocation contestable

Diagnostic questions

  1. 1.Who can block without a title?
  2. 2.Where is the appeal path?