The Human Side of Fluid Organizations

Introduction

Sarah wasn't her real name—we'll call her that to protect the innocent. She was a backend engineer at Split, had been with the company for several months, and was well-regarded by her peers. When I introduced FAST teams and our dual operating system, she initially seemed curious about the approach. She asked questions during the all-hands presentation and participated in our first planning sessions.

Not too long after we moved to this model, she quit.

Her exit interview was blunt: "This is chaos. I don't know who's in charge anymore. Too many voices in the room trying to make decisions. Can we just get clear specs? Product work isn't my job—I just want to be told what to build. Why do we need to change from Scrum if it was working fine?"

Sarah wasn't alone. Within those same three months, we lost another engineer—a frontend developer who had joined the company just a few months before I arrived. The feedback was similar: confusion about roles, frustration with collaborative decision-making, and a preference for the clarity of traditional hierarchies.

A third engineer, much more senior and with years at the company, didn't quit but asked to transfer to a different team rather than continue with our fluid approach. The message was clear: some very capable people genuinely preferred the old way of working.

This rapid attrition and harsh feedback from a senior with tenure at the company stung and got immediate attention from my SVP of Engineering. Three people leaving or requesting transfers in three months wasn't just unfortunate—it was a signal that I had A LOT of work to do on the human side of organizational change.

The departures forced me to confront uncomfortable truths about my own approach: I had been so focused on the structural benefits of fluid organizations that I had underestimated how disruptive the change would be for people. I had assumed that smart engineers would see the advantages and adapt quickly. I was wrong.

Some people genuinely prefer stability, clear roles, and being given explicit instructions on what to do rather than figuring it out collaboratively. The skills that made someone successful in traditional hierarchies don't automatically transfer. I had failed to provide adequate support for people navigating this transition.

In my desire to quickly turn the ship around and truly help the teams realize their fullest potential and get ever closer to autonomy, mastery, and purpose, I overlooked the fact that changes this radical, that can affect people's belief systems and identity down to their core, need TIME.

The companies that succeed with fluid organizations don't just design better structures. They design for the humans who have to navigate constant change, uncertainty, and role ambiguity. They acknowledge that this transformation is hard, provide real support through the transition, and create legitimate paths for people who ultimately don't thrive in fluid environments.

I had to learn this the hard way.

Acknowledging the real human cost

Let's start with honesty: moving to fluid organizations is disruptive for most people. The changes aren't just structural—they're identity-threatening. When your sense of professional self is tied to your title, role, team, or your specific expertise, fluidity can feel like an existential crisis.

At Split, I watched this play out across different personality types and career stages:

Managers suddenly questioned their value. In traditional organizations, management is about coordination and control. In fluid systems, teams self-organize and mission leaders emerge organically. What's left for the managers?

Senior specialists who had spent their careers building deep expertise in narrow domains found themselves asked to work across functions. A senior data scientist who had mastered machine learning algorithms was suddenly expected to understand customer research and product strategy.

High performers who had climbed traditional ladders by excelling at clearly defined roles felt lost when success became more about collaboration and adaptation than individual achievement.

The costs were real and measurable. During the first few months of our FAST implementation, voluntary turnover in my organization increased drastically. Not everyone who left faced performance challenges. Some of our departures were people who simply couldn't see themselves in the new system.

Bayer's Dynamic Shared Ownership (DSO) implementation shows what happens when organizations ignore these human factors. Forbes published an article about how Bayer eliminated 1,500 management positions while asking remaining employees to take on leadership responsibilities without the formal authority or compensation that traditionally came with those roles.

The predictable result: confusion, resentment, and anxiety. Employees worried about career progression when traditional ladders disappeared. People bristled at being asked to manage others without manager titles or pay grades. Employee concerns raised at Bayer live Q&A events could easily be a case study in how not to handle organizational transformation: role ambiguity, unclear career paths, and the feeling that the company was asking people to do more for less.

Why smart people resist fluid organizations

Resistance to fluid organizations isn't about being change-averse or lacking vision. Smart, capable people resist for rational reasons that organizations often dismiss or misunderstand.

Identity anchored in stability

Most professionals build their identity around stable elements: their function (I'm an engineer), their team (I work on the platform team), their level (I'm a director). Fluid organizations ask people to hold these identities more lightly, to see themselves as capability contributors rather than role owners.

This shift is harder for people who have invested heavily in functional expertise. A machine learning engineer who spent five years mastering deep learning frameworks doesn't want to spend time on user research. It feels like a step backward, even when the broader skills make them more valuable.

Control and predictability needs

Some people genuinely thrive on predictability. They like knowing who they'll work with, what their responsibilities are, and how success gets measured. The ambiguity inherent in fluid systems creates stress rather than excitement.

These aren't inflexible people. They're often highly productive in stable environments. But they perform best when they can plan, optimize, and execute within clear boundaries. Constant change depletes their energy instead of energizing them.

Career progression anxiety

Traditional career paths provide clear signaling: promotions, title changes, salary increases. Fluid organizations often flatten hierarchies and blur traditional advancement signals. People worry about how to demonstrate growth, build their resume, or position themselves for future opportunities.

This anxiety is particularly acute for people earlier in their careers who haven't yet built strong professional networks or established expertise. They need the credibility that comes with clear roles and achievements.

The management track disruption

For many people, their entire career has been spent working toward becoming a supervisor or manager. That's what they've always seen and been led to believe demonstrates progression and growth. Suddenly, that path is not just unclear—it's largely removed.

Not only are there fewer people with official management titles, but you're asked to take on many aspects of what that role was without the formal authority and likely without the compensation that accompanies it. People who had been climbing the management ladder suddenly find themselves in limbo: too experienced to be individual contributors in the traditional sense, but without clear paths to the leadership roles they'd been working toward.

Competence concerns

Moving to fluid teams means regularly working outside your core expertise. For people who have built confidence through mastery, this can feel threatening. A product manager who has to create a high-fidelity mockup or a frontend engineer who has to review a data pipeline implementation might feel genuinely incompetent in these contexts.

The fear isn't just about looking bad in front of colleagues. It's about the genuine discomfort of being a beginner again, especially when surrounded by experts in other domains.

Forced participation in disliked work

Fluid teams often require people to participate in activities they've traditionally avoided or actively dislike. Some engineers prefer to focus solely on the "build" phase and resist participating in discovery or product specification work. Some product managers want to stay in strategy and user research rather than getting into prototyping or technical implementation details. Data scientists might prefer model development over code reviews and deployment concerns.

In traditional organizations, people can often specialize enough to avoid their least favorite activities. Fluid teams make this specialization harder to maintain. When a mission requires end-to-end delivery, everyone needs to contribute across the full spectrum of work, even in areas where they feel less capable or motivated.

How you can actually help people through the change

Organizations that successfully transition to fluid models provide extensive support during the change. They don't just announce new structures and hope people adapt. They build bridges that help people navigate from old ways of working to new ones.

Psychological safety as the foundation

Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety becomes critical in fluid organizations. When teams constantly form and dissolve, people need confidence that they can speak up, ask questions, and make mistakes without career damage.

Our Home Base retrospectives at Split weren't just about project lessons—they focused on individual growth, skill development, and collaboration challenges. People could openly discuss what they struggled with, what they wanted to learn, and where they needed support. We bolstered these by making it a point for managers to actively seek this feedback and make this a core aspect of their roles.

We also established what I call "incompetence amnesty": explicit permission to be beginners when working outside your core expertise. A data scientist working on their first customer research mission could ask basic questions about interview techniques without judgment. An engineer contributing to product strategy could admit uncertainty about market analysis. We didn't believe in dumb questions. Everyone was there to learn from one another and support each other when taking on new skills and roles.

Transition coaching and mentorship

Fluid organizations require new skills: rapid relationship building, cross-functional communication, and comfort with ambiguity. These skills aren't intuitive for everyone and can't be learned through training programs alone.

We didn't create formal mentorship programs, but we made coaching a core part of not only what managers did with their people but also what Home Base leadership did with and for everyone, regardless of level.

The coaching focused on practical skills:

• How to contribute meaningfully to teams outside your expertise
• How to build credibility quickly with new colleagues
• How to manage the anxiety of not being the expert in the room
• How to find purpose and impact in roles that felt less defined
• How to lead and be led, regardless of title, seniority, or tenure

Skill development with purpose

One of the biggest sources of resistance was the feeling that fluid organizations asked people to become generalists at the expense of their hard-won expertise. We learned to frame skill development differently: not as abandoning expertise, but as building context that makes expertise more valuable.

A machine learning engineer who learned user research skills didn't become a worse engineer. They became an engineer who could build models that actually solved user problems. A product manager who developed technical skills didn't lose product judgment. They gained the ability to make more informed tradeoffs.

We aimed to build what some call M-shaped people: individuals with deep expertise in several areas plus broad capabilities across multiple domains. This approach allowed people to maintain their professional identity while developing the adaptability that fluid teams require.

We worked on creating "skill bridges" that connected new capabilities to existing strengths. People could see how learning complementary skills enhanced rather than replaced their core value.

Redefining success and recognition

Traditional performance management breaks down in fluid organizations. Individual attribution becomes fuzzy when teams constantly change. Comparing performance across people working on different missions with different timeframes and constraints becomes meaningless.

While we didn't fully shift to contribution-based assessment, it became a bigger part of how we evaluated people. Inspired by sports analytics like plus-minus, we looked at how teams performed differently when specific people joined them rather than rating individual performance in isolation. A data scientist might not be the star of any single mission, but teams consistently delivered better analytical insights when they were involved.

360-degree feedback became much more important, especially when managers didn't always directly work with their people all the time and could directly experience their work. They needed input from multiple sources to understand their peoples’ impact and growth opportunities.

We also expanded recognition beyond traditional metrics. People got credit for:

• Contributing to successful mission completion
• Sharing knowledge across domains
• Taking on challenging assignments outside their comfort zone
• Contributing to other people's growth and development

The key was making the new success criteria explicit and celebrating them visibly. When people saw that the behaviors the organization said it valued were actually rewarded, adoption accelerated.

Who thrives vs. who struggles: honest assessment

After building and leading fluid teams for some time, I’ve seen clear patterns emerge regarding who adapts well and who continues to struggle. Understanding these patterns helps organizations provide better support and make more informed decisions about who to prioritize in the transition.

Natural fluid team members

Some people take to fluid organizations immediately:

Learners and explorers who are energized by variety and new challenges. These people often feel constrained by traditional roles and appreciate the opportunity to work across functions.

Relationship builders who enjoy meeting new people and forming connections. They see team formation as an opportunity to expand their network rather than a burden.

Systems thinkers who are curious about how different parts of the organization connect. They appreciate seeing the business from multiple angles and understanding interdependencies.

Early career professionals who haven't yet specialized deeply and are still figuring out their interests and strengths. Fluid teams give them exposure to different types of work and help them make more informed career choices.

People who struggle but eventually adapt

A significant group initially resists but ultimately finds their footing with the right support:

Mid-career specialists who need time to see how their expertise remains valuable in the new system. Once they understand how to contribute their knowledge to diverse teams, many become strong advocates.

Managers transitioning to coaching roles who have to redefine their identity and value proposition. Those who successfully make the shift often find the new role more fulfilling than traditional management.

High performers concerned about career progression who need explicit discussion about how advancement works in the new system. When they see peers growing in influence and responsibility through mission impact, they become more comfortable.

People who never fully adapt

Unfortunately, some people never find their groove in fluid organizations, despite support:

Deep specialists who derive satisfaction and identity from being the expert in their domain. They find cross-functional work dilutive rather than enriching.

Structure-dependent performers who need clear role definitions and stable relationships to do their best work. The ambiguity and constant change of fluid systems creates ongoing stress.

Control-oriented managers who can’t let go of directing work and making decisions for others. They struggle to shift to enabling and coaching roles.

Career climbers focused on traditional advancement signals like titles and org chart position. When these markers become less relevant, they feel lost and undervalued.

Creating legitimate off-ramps

One of my biggest mistakes at Split was treating resistance to fluid organizations as a problem to solve rather than a preference to respect. Some people genuinely do better work in stable, clearly defined roles. Trying to force everyone into a fluid model wastes time and creates unnecessary friction.

Recognizing when it's not working

I learned to watch for persistent signs that someone wasn't thriving:

• Consistently declining to join mission teams or only joining under pressure
• Expressing frustration about role ambiguity even after coaching and support
• Performing noticeably worse in cross-functional contexts than in their core domain
• Appearing stressed or disengaged despite positive team relationships

When these patterns persisted after extensive support, we started honest conversations about alternatives.

Internal transfers to stable teams

Not every part of the organization needs to operate fluidly. Some functions often work better with stable teams and clear specialization. We created explicit pathways for people to move into these areas without it feeling like a demotion.

We also supported the move for some folks to other teams that operated in much more traditional structures. Interestingly enough, we often found that their new teams lauded these new teammates’ initiative and predisposition to tackle broader challenges.

External opportunities with dignity

Sometimes the best outcome is helping people find roles elsewhere that better match their preferences. Develop strong relationships with other companies in your network and actively help people find positions that suit their working style.

These transitions should be handled as positive career moves, not failures. I find that people who leave for more traditional environments often maintain relationships with your organization and sometimes return later when their preferences or circumstances change.

Hybrid approaches

We also experimented with hybrid models for people who wanted some stability but could handle some fluidity. Some people joined mission teams on a limited basis while maintaining primary responsibilities in stable functions. Others joined only mission teams during phases that best aligned with their preferred type of work like during Discovery or during the Build phase.

These compromises weren't ideal from a pure fluid organization perspective, but they allowed us to retain valuable people who contributed in ways that worked for them.

Building sustainable transitions: lessons from Bayer's struggles

Bayer's DSO implementation offers a cautionary tale about what happens when organizations focus on structural changes without adequate attention to human factors. According to multiple analyses, Bayer's approach created several predictable problems:

Career anxiety without clear alternatives: Eliminating management positions without providing clear alternative advancement paths left people uncertain about their future growth opportunities.

Responsibility without authority: Asking people to take on leadership tasks without formal recognition or compensation created resentment and confusion about accountability.

Change without support: Rolling out new structures without extensive coaching, mentorship, or skill development left people to figure out new ways of working on their own.

One-size-fits-all thinking: Assuming everyone would adapt to the new model without providing alternatives for people who preferred different working styles.

The contrast with successful implementations is stark. Organizations that make fluid models work invest heavily in transition support, maintain some traditional options, and accept that not everyone will adapt immediately or at all.

Learning from implementation failures

Bayer's struggles highlight critical success factors for human-centered transitions:

Gradual rollout: Start with pilot areas where people volunteer to participate rather than organization-wide mandates.

Extensive training: Invest in skill development for the specific capabilities fluid organizations require: collaboration, systems thinking, and ambiguity tolerance.

Clear communication: Be explicit about what's changing, why it's changing, and what support is available. Address career progression concerns directly.

Patience with adaptation: Allow 12-18 months for people to find their footing in new systems. Some people need time to see the benefits before they buy in.

Honest assessment: Regularly evaluate whether the transition is working for both the organization and individuals. Be willing to adjust approaches based on feedback.

Supporting humans through change: the real work

Fluid organizations represent a fundamental shift in how work gets done. The structural changes—forming mission teams, eliminating hierarchies, distributing decision-making—are relatively straightforward. The human changes are much harder.

People need time to develop new skills, redefine their professional identity, and find their place in systems that work differently than anything they've experienced. Some people will thrive in these environments. Others will struggle despite extensive support. Both outcomes are valid and predictable.

The organizations that succeed with fluid models don't just design better structures. They design for human needs: belonging, growth, recognition, and choice. They provide extensive support during transitions while accepting that not everyone will make the journey. They create legitimate alternatives for people who prefer different working styles.

Most importantly, they recognize that supporting humans through change isn't a side project or afterthought. It's the core work that determines whether organizational transformation succeeds or fails.

At Split, we learned that the technical challenges of fluid organizations were solvable with good design and iteration. The human challenges required patience, empathy, and genuine care for people's well-being and career success. The investment was worth it: the people who adapted became more capable, more engaged, and more valuable to the organization. The people who moved to different environments found roles that better suited their preferences and working styles.

The next article in this series will focus on practical implementation: the specific tools, frameworks, and processes for making fluid organizations work in practice. But all the tools and frameworks in the world won't help if you haven't first figured out how to support the humans who have to live and work in the systems you're creating.

Start by honestly assessing your organization's readiness: Do people feel safe expressing concerns about change? Do your leaders understand and support the human side of transformation? Are you prepared to provide extensive coaching and mentorship? Do you have legitimate alternatives for people who don't thrive in fluid environments?

The answers to these questions determine whether your transformation creates a more adaptive organization or just creates chaos and turnover. Choose wisely.

Essential reading for human-centered organizational change

Understanding psychological safety and team dynamics:

• The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson: The definitive guide to building psychological safety in organizations
• An Everyone Culture by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey: How to create organizations that support human development through work

Practical change management:

• Managing Transitions by William Bridges and Susan Bridges: How people experience transitions, not just the technical or structural aspects
• Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath: Motivating people and balancing rational and emotional drivers during change
• Radical Candor by Kim Scott: Building honest feedback cultures that support growth

Next in the series: Implementing Fluid Organizations: Patterns and Anti-Patterns - The specific tools, frameworks, and processes for building fluid organizations that work.