Yesterday I was at a seminar in which one of the panel leaders suggested that we needed to create representative organizations for civil society - and the implication was that we should invent more structures similar to multilaterals or church hierarchies. My instant reaction was "No-o!" (insert Edvard Munch's "The Scream" painting here). 

Niall Ferguson wrote a book called The Tower and the Square, in which he suggested that historically we have gone through alternately networked and hierarchical eras. One networked era started with the printing press, and another with the desktop computer - the latter being the era in which we presently find ourselves. The advantage to a networked era is that it's more broadly and horizontally integrated. 

The nature of civil society is such that it functions best as a network. It includes local organizations, NGOs, and activitsts, for example. To superimpose some kind of hierarchy on top of it might formalize the voices of some key actors (good), but squelch others (bad). For central years of my career I worked for a hierarchical public multilateral. The structure worked for channelling lines of capital toward economic and social development in Latin America, but in other ways it was full of cumbersome rules and procedures, stifling direct action. 

Over the years I've grown somewhat allergic to hierarchy. As the Principal of WyldeFire Creatives LLC, I foment the creation of fluid networks. I think that leadership is a relationship, and that the art of collaboration depends on having as little hierarchy as possible. I do appreciate some hierarchy and its well-meaning advocates, but generally I think we are in a networked age, and we should keep it rolling as long as possible.