A reverse hierarchy is a conceptual organizational structure that attempts to "invert" the classical pyramid of hierarchical organisations. The concept was pioneered by the total quality management movement.
The reverse hierarchy promotes the idea that the most important employees are those who deal daily with the organisations' customers, i.e. those who would normally be at the "bottom" of the hierarchy. It is then the role of supervisors and managers (normally "higher" in the hierarchy) to support these employees and to remove the obstacles that hinder them in satisfying their customers' needs. Thus the "more senior" people are actually "lower" in the inverted pyramid, as they have more people to support.
Some organisations claim to be operating in this way when in fact all that has happened is that the organisation chart has been drawn in an inverted fashion.
Famous quotes containing the words reverse and/or hierarchy:
“We came home from the ridotto so late, or rather so early, that it was not possible for me to write. Indeed we did not go ... till past eleven o’clock: but nobody does. A terrible reverse of the order of nature! We sleep with the sun, and wake with the moon.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“In the world of the celebrity, the hierarchy of publicity has replaced the hierarchy of descent and even of great wealth.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)