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Top down management Vs Bottom Up Management

February 10th, 2008 | Articles

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Guest Post by Jyothi M John
I have been thinking about this concepts of after watching Last week’s Hard Talk show on BBC.

Let me first explain the concepts before going about the pro’s and con’s of each style. First the is a management structure in which, the managers are appointed directly -with or without relevent experience but with the necessary qualification. The Bottom Up style is where the manager’s are appointed by promoting the lower-rung people who have plenty of experience but not necessarily with the qualifications.

The Biggest drawback of Top Down structure is that the Manager lacks understanding of the actual setup and structure of the company. They may have learned a lot at school but when it comes to implementation, there will be a lot of hurdles, you never read about in the books. The biggest advantage being that the person has ready made answers, and can avoid a lot of mistakes.

For Bottom Up the biggest disadvantage being that the person is not a subscriber of out of the box ideas. And the biggest advantage being that he has a total understanding of the whole structure of the company and knows where to put enough oil for the functioning to be smooth. But without aggressive and out of the box ideas, it is very difficult to grow a company these days.

Me being a product of Bottom up structure, have a soft conner for this structure. But I feel that there should be some balance in the management structure, to maximize the profitability. On the top level management it should be always bottom up managers - as these guy’s will always have the respect of the people below, and also these guy’s will have a better understanding of the rick factors in running a company. On the advisory levels, it is better to have top down people - as these people will bring in a lot of fresh and out of the box Ideas. And moreover these guy’s will have a better understanding of today’s technology and concepts to implement them and improve the productivity of the company.

Please do leave comments on as to what you think of these structures.

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6 comments ↓

#1 Steve on 02.11.08 at 5:41 am

I agree with your philosophy well put.

#2 Jo on 02.12.08 at 4:15 am

Hi Jyothi

I’m surprised by your definitions. I though that top down management was decision at the top and execution at the bottom.

I thought bottom up management was decision at the bottom and execution at the top!

I didn’t see the Hard Talk program so maybe I’ve missed a beat!

#3 Ritesh on 02.12.08 at 5:15 pm

I think that both “the bottom up” and “the top down” styles are implemented in the vertical management structure which are of course very much prevalent in todays management system but i see that a lot of companies are trying to put a horizontal management system in place where the two styles you mentioned are somewhat extinct.
In a horizontal system, we have a top management team with one or two (minimum no.) levels in b/w and then the executives.
So, the employees have a direct approach to, lets say, even the CEO of the company.

#4 John on 02.14.08 at 2:07 pm

Hi Jo

I am not very sure about your definition of the management structures. Top-Down and Down-Up, it has always been the management that has been on the top that takes decisions and it has always been the people below who do the execution….
It will be interesting to know about a management structure that takes decisions at the bottom and the execution happens at the top.

Hi Ritesh
Your observations about horizontal management structure is perfectly true. This is basically driven by customer centric focus of the company, where the company is more of interested in satisfying the customer more than anything else. In the Horizontal Management structure, the Manager attending to a customer is responsible for sorting out all the customers issues, even if it does not fall under his portfolio. In the older vertical structure, if the problem did not fall under the managers portfolio, the problem is escalated to the respective department and the customer is shunned from desk to desk to get his problem solved. Here again I feel that there has to be a balanced implementation of both Vertical and Horizontal Management structures for the organization to get optimum results.

#5 Al Gates on 02.18.08 at 1:12 am

Top-Down and Down-Up Management Rely on a number of assumptions that are pretty shaky, e.g., In some Japanese management structures, Down-Up is used as the workers are quite good at out-of-the-box thinking. However Top-Down remains in Decision control….
Therefore, a balanced implementation of both Vertical and Horizontal Management structures for the organization is probable a good way to go unless something in the organization proves otherwise.

#6 Happy BirthDay to Me and My Blog | Disruptive Technologies and Education on 06.12.08 at 10:09 am

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