When you give people more control over the flow of information and decision making in their communities, their social health improves — incrementally, in fits and starts, but also inexorably. 

Steven Johnson 

Peer to Peer is the central theme of the internet, but has broad scope impacts in other domains like businesses or team settings. The idea is that decisions are made by the majority of the people within the network – consensus over hierarchy is what peer to peer networks are based on. 

How this applies to a team setting to me is really interesting. A concept that Ray Dalio in his book Principles was this concept of a Meritocracy which is an entity that is governed by the people within. A meritocracy or a peer to peer network works based on the central theme that the people within an organization are empowered by their influence on their environment. 

In a peer network, no one is officially in charge. It doesn’t have a command hierarchy. It doesn’t have a boss. So, all the decisions are somehow made collectively. 

Steven Johnson

We go on the internet as much as we do because what we say and do there will engage others and will have influence on the environment. This should be the same for a team or an organization we work within. There is a concept of High Performance Model, where we hire the best in each domain to provide the highest quality to our athletes. If this is something we aspire to have or work within, we have to consider this only works if it is more peer to peer as opposed to hierarchical. 

I can attest to being in the position of leader and having to empower others that work for me is not easy. We want to be in the leadership position for the status or the notoriety it may bring. However, with that comes increased responsibility and accountability that is associated with leadership. Shared responsibility does not necessarily mean shared blame. We want to hire the best people possible to give us the best chance to be successful. More talented and capable people have an intrinsic motivation to be in a leadership position, this is where you install a peer to peer network. This will manifest itself into shared responsibility, shared credit, but singular blame – unfortunately this is the cost of doing business as a leader. 

Having people be responsible for each aspect of the department is important to create interest and support within your department. As a leader you are facilitating your staff to work together while simultaneously being in command of their direct responsibilities. Having coaches that can give input on how to do something outside of their direct responsibilities empowers them to become more versatile. This creates a more Anti Fragile environment such as Taleb talked about in Anti Fragile. 

When you have people that are very capable, they will have opportunities elsewhere. The cost of high performance and success is high turnover. A peer to peer network means that transition is not so drastic on systems once someone leaves. Collaboration leads to people appreciating each other and allowing others to help. When someone leaves, everyone has a familiarity with one’s job and can cover or help with the transition of someone new. 

Staff communication is obviously important. What is challenging is that a staff is not encouraged to communicate without some direct initiative or framework. Leaders can create distention and competition with staff in hierarchical structures. This may be motivating at times but leads to challenges with sustainability. People leaving from frustration and resentment leads to loss of productivity and performance. We want people to leave for better opportunities, not from being disenfranchised. More peer to peer networks within the organization lead to less loss from that turnover and concurrent increased performance while they are with the organization. 

It is better to have a staff that views themselves as equals that work together, over someone being in charge. This includes the director or head coach. Leaders that are well versed, capable, and willing to do all the jobs are more valuable to their staff. They are peers, not employees. It also keeps the line of communication open, instead of privately. Highly recommend this book, I think it has a lot of parallels to our higher performance models we all are aspiring to have.