Hierarchical model in crisis, Italian managers focus on AI and horizontal governance

A large majority of Italian companies operate according to traditional hierarchical schemes, but trust in that model is showing increasingly evident cracks. This is according to a study commissioned by Professional Link to the independent research institute Sylla, a study that will be presented on 25 February during the event "Il capo non serve più?" (The boss is no longer needed?) organised in Milan by the Como-based company and that Il Sole 24 Ore can preview.

The survey, which explores the awareness of Italian managers and C-Levels with respect to the organisational models in use by measuring their openness towards more collaborative and flexible structures (also in relation to the growing use of artificial intelligence), paints a picture with several noteworthy specificities. The first concerns the percentage of companies, 78% of the total, that still adopt a pyramid structure; only 23% of managers, however, declare themselves fully satisfied with their organisation, while 32% confirm that the hierarchical structure hinders profitability and development. On the other hand, collaborative models with horizontal governance are rewarded for faster decision-making and increased collaboration between teams by around two thirds of managers and for more effective talent development by 44% of respondents.
A final indicator, finally, clearly sums up the current trend: 65% of the companies surveyed report critical issues in the current organisational set-up and show, with varying levels of maturity, openness to change.

The difference between the traditional hierarchical model and alternative governance models is reflected in the average rating that measures the degree of satisfaction with both: 6.8 out of 10 in terms of effectiveness for the former, against 7.2 for the latter. "The results of the research," observes Andrea Ferlin, founder and CEO of Professional Link, "indicate a structural crisis of the pyramid organisation, which is associated with slow decision-making, an obstacle to collaboration, and a failure to make the most of skills. It is not just a question of execution, but of the system itself, which is inadequate for unpredictable markets and rapid innovations that are changing the way we think and act today'. The key issue, as the study shows, is not only to improve processes within the pyramid, but to question its adequacy in a context where uncertainty is structural and speed of adaptation becomes a competitive factor. It is not surprising, in this sense, that around 60% of managers associate horizontal models with greater speed and quality in terms of decision flows and collaboration between the various teams, and that this openness is not limited to an enlightened minority of respondents, but cuts across the entire sample of Italian managers.

The willingness to go beyond the traditional hierarchy, on the other hand, has to reckon with a number of internal obstacles: in 31% of the cases, the traditional organisational culture, in 20% the concentration of strategic choices in a few top figures, and in 14% a limited openness to innovation. "The issue," Ferin confirms in this regard, "is above all cultural. In the traditional model, which is still clearly prevalent, command-control logics dominate, which often risk being repulsive to people. On the contrary, a hierarchy built in everyday life and therefore recognised in a natural way, welcomes and encourages participative and humanistic styles'. But what conditions are needed for distributed governance not to degenerate into confusion? The answer is a delicate balance between autonomy and responsibility, and Professional Link's experience is a concrete example. 'Distributed governance,' Ferin assures us, 'works when it is based on mutual trust, shared responsibility and a hierarchy that emerges from personal skills and qualities, not formal positions. It is the concept of ethical dissolution between command and obedience, with leaders who do not disappear but put themselves at the service of the organisation as architects of cohesion and promoters of trust. The real challenge is not to eliminate leadership, but to build more humane organisations without losing sight of the company's objective, which is always to generate profit'. The result of this approach, for the Como-based company, has been a doubling of personnel and turnover in the last 24 months and a declared growth target for this year of 20%. At the base, as the manager went on to emphasise, 'there is an investment in people that must be organic and measurable in terms of results, and not something to which residual time and resources can be allocated'. Only in this way - this is the assumption - does the organisational transformation constitute a direct performance lever and not a theoretical exercise, in the wake of a vision that sees the overcoming of hierarchy coinciding with the affirmation of a different leadership, less centred on control and more on the construction of enabling contexts.

Finally, a separate chapter concerns AI. Almost two-thirds of the respondents (62% to be precise) consider it a useful and concrete tool for change and information sharing, just over half (52%) consider it indispensable for managing workflows and workloads. The survey has made it possible to categorise four managerial profiles that also reflect different approaches to innovation, with 42% of the sample falling into the 'Empathic Innovators' cluster; these are future-oriented leaders, who stand out for seeing relationships and creativity as the engine of change and for considering artificial intelligence an ally, provided it is at the service of human beings. Only a marginal share, 5%, maintains a more conservative and sceptical view and falls into the category of 'Traditionalists', while 28% belong to the universe of 'Practical Collaborators' and the remaining 25% to that of 'Collaborative Optimists'.