"Flat" is not the solution but there's definitely room to rethink hierarchy. It's possibly less about the 'structure' and more about the power dynamics that can go unquestioned.
A hierarchy based on clear definition of roles where people playing these roles are matched in skills and level of commitment makes sense.
Hierarchies become toxic when people who have more high-commitment roles start using power to dominate and entrench their power. Usually this results in a cascading effect where people with skills can't fully manifest them because they are needing to defend their position rather than contributing from a place of empowerment.
A hierarchy can be power-with vs. power-over if it has ways to limit dominance and to encourage evidence-based decision-making and more autonomy within the system. In other words, structure to avoid making individual personalities or identities the driver of influence and power but instead develop role-based structures with clear. responsibilities and boundaries.
Maybe it's more of a holarchy model at that point, where the goal is for each part of the organization to be important, and to fully contribute no matter what their role is, which doesn't mean everyone has the same level of commitment or decision-influence.
You finished in a better place than you started there. Roles are not the answer. As Bateson once said, a role is only a half-assed relationship.
What quickly flattens the hierarchy is to allow the parts to which you refer to overlap, with meaningful participation not only inside them but in the intersections, people participating therefore in multiple parts – relationships between parts implemented via relationships between people. That's how you build networks not only of value delivery (trendy but missing the point) but of strategy and rapid insight/intelligence sharing. It doesn't take much of that to halve the network distance across the organisation.
A hierarchy based on clear definition of roles where people playing these roles are matched in skills and level of commitment makes sense.
Hierarchies become toxic when people who have more high-commitment roles start using power to dominate and entrench their power. Usually this results in a cascading effect where people with skills can't fully manifest them because they are needing to defend their position rather than contributing from a place of empowerment.
A hierarchy can be power-with vs. power-over if it has ways to limit dominance and to encourage evidence-based decision-making and more autonomy within the system. In other words, structure to avoid making individual personalities or identities the driver of influence and power but instead develop role-based structures with clear. responsibilities and boundaries.
Maybe it's more of a holarchy model at that point, where the goal is for each part of the organization to be important, and to fully contribute no matter what their role is, which doesn't mean everyone has the same level of commitment or decision-influence.