Parallel structure represents one of the greatest diseases, a company, state or population can suffer from. It is often a sort of an oncological disease, a mutour on the body of the control system. As a rule, the reasons can be the following: either a company is badly managed in favorable economic and development climate, or the management is inactive and uninitiative during crises and cataclysms, however quite frequently the reasons are implicit.
 
In Russian there is a term - "eyes have swum fat ". It is one of the reasons of the occurrence of parallel structures, when the top management does not take into account the organizing power of its subordinates, or just does not want to see it in order to avoid any competition. The subordinates, in their turn, try to get organized among themselves within the company's framework. The owners enjoy positive balances and fantastic profits, doze and pretend that everything is all right and no changes are necessary. Meanwhile, the tumour ripens and starts destroying the administrative resources of the company.
 
If a staff member has the talent for guiding people in any form the latter will show itself, even against the will of the management. I know it from my personal experience. So, if the management underestimates my talent, I can make the whole company or its division either develop or self-destruct, depending on what is more favorable for me, disregarding the company's interests. Here we see Peter's principle in operation. So, it is very important for the society to provide growth opportunities for each individual. 
 
In order to create a lot of problems, it is enough to direct the company's development into impasse, to create an administrative vacuum, to make orders look nonsense (my experience shows that it really works). It is important to remain unnoticed not only for the top management, but also for the colleagues whom you do not trust. Given that such systems are actually implicitly organized, I have named them parallel structures. Only a person who knows what he deals with is able to detect them.
 
It often happens that a parallel structure created in the company turns out to be more effective, than the official one. The power of the business owners is nominal, and the company keeps working only because parallel structures need it. Let us have Russia as an example. The state management structures are much weaker than parallel systems; particularly in regions distant from the centers, where the local authorities enjoy almost unlimited power. So, being an expert in the field of control systems, I am not at all surprised that laws in Russia either do not work or operate in some perverted manner - the laws in the regions are different and beyond the center's control. It is not the destruction of management vertical; it is parallel structures in action. "Moscow is far away, but we are here" - this principle has always been practiced in Russia, even when the central power was very strong.
 
In order to fight this evil (or good - who knows?) it is important to detect parallel structures and their backgrounds, and to develop measures preventing the progress of such structures. "Consumption of pepper can either provoke a stomach ulcer or cure indigestion". The eradication of parallel structures can often be destructive for the company, because it can completely destroy internal business relations, break the information balance of an enterprise, or simply cause thefts or leaks of confidential information. If a patient has a lung cancer, the removal of both lungs will cause a lethal outcome.
 
The struggle with parallel structures requires a plan to get the company out from the crisis and to transform a parallel structure into a useful body of management and management integration, in case things has not gone so far, that the only means is amputation. I know it from my personal experience. We all know that people with good-quality tumours can live long. I mean that at first it is necessary to define whether a certain parallel structure is dangerous for the company, and only then we can decide what to do and what measures to take.
 
Unfortunately, the talent for guiding people is more implicit, than the talents for playing football, painting or writing. I do not mean that it is more difficult to detect it (though it is silly to talk about the complexity of any talent), I mean that it is hidden and, thus, dangerous, you can just feel it or guess from some private talks, which often requires much effort. Just imagine that you have hired some individual like Adolf Gitler or Napoleon - where he can get the company if he feels your weak points in management, your divergence or absence of initiative. Though there are certain methods to detect such phenomena, they are not universal (as well as medicines) and can be applied only under the experts control, who will constantly supervise the situation in the company and its progress. Here we need a complex approach, as the measurement of a body temperature (in a case with the company - the profit of the latter) does not always signal illness (parallel structure or structural deformation).

Last modified: 12.01.2003
Translation by Elena Polyanskaya