it depends on what's meant by 'formalise'.

Whichever way you look at it, there's a chasm to cross; wirearchy is a new technology subject to the Technology Adoption LifeCycle. It's a non-incremental change.

I think we often, subconsciously perhaps, see this transitional period (and, like you, I see this change as both inevitable and desirable - NB a lethal combination when it comes to rationality and avoiding cognitive bias) as a bit like melting. The command and control structures will 'unfreeze' and knowledge, engagement and value will flow.

But it's far more likely that non-incremental change feels more like detonation than melting. Wirearchy is explosive and 'disruptive innovation' is as messy as it sounds.

Counter-intuitively, 'formalisation' can help - a CEO can, for example, formalise a new social contract. As a few already have. Explosion then, hopefully, becomes propellant.

As another example, consider Social Media in the enterprise. It's difficult for this to 'happen' without a 'formalisation' of the process. The benefits of Social Media occur mainly at scale following Metcalfe's Law (though this 'law' works better as metaphor - Metcalfe's Metaphor?). So, it's easier for a leader to announce it as a new direction by 'ordering' its adoption than for it to happen.

(I should note here that I'm sounding a little like an evolution-denialist. How could something as complex and useful as a banana evolve? I'm not saying it can't, but natural evolution has an advantage that business doesn't - time).

So, as usual, I'm violently agreeing with you. But 'formalising' the informal is more of a paradox than an absurdity.