Metadata
- Author: The Economist
- Full Title:: Why Companies Need Middle Managers
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Déjame sin trabajo, por favor
- URL:: https://www.economist.com/business/2021/10/02/why-companies-need-middle-managers?gclid=Cj0KCQjw9deiBhC1ARIsAHLjR2ALRIdG9gno9S6QcNaSmNzksNXnwQQJkvgupb8pTiBs-2hdP38fIvUaAgxxEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&ppcadID=&ppccampaignID=18151738051&utm_source=pocket_saves
- Finished date:: 2023-05-06
Highlights
More fashionable of late has been the pancake organigram: fewer layers of workers reporting to a smaller cadre of chieftains. (View Highlight)
Which we have seen for example in Meta
Now such middle managers are derided as pound-shop CEOs, there largely to organise and attend pointless meetings. A few modish startups bill themselves as having no administrative tiers at all, leaving independent employees flitting between tasks as they see fit. Such holacracy, as it is dubbed, clearly won’t do for a Unilever or Goldman Sachs. But even big firms now ritually boast about “delayering” their ranks. (View Highlight)
Several factors contributed to the “flattening” trend. Businesses discovered that having lots of mini-barons could lead to stultifying silos. New ways of working—starting with modern technology—mean that executives can manage more subordinates, including some far away. Add enough direct reports to each supervisor, and the number of rungs between the chief executive and the graduate trainee shrinks accordingly. (View Highlight)
bosses with dozens of flunkeys can hardly be expected to micromanage them. Uncluttered organigrams make companies more agile, enable faster decision-making and trim costs to boot. Business titans like Elon Musk of Tesla, a car firm, have painted delayering as a way of improving communication and shedding corporate deadweight. (View Highlight)
Companies that went furthest in scrapping management tiers discovered that getting rid of a formal pecking order resulted in informal hierarchies taking hold instead. A leadership vacuum risks being filled by petty tyranny. It is inevitable when large groups of people spend time together, in the office or elsewhere, that someone ends up in charge (View Highlight)
Or, if everyone is on paper holacratically equal, it might be whoever talks loudest at meetings. (View Highlight)
Layers of bosses provide structure (View Highlight)