Recently I met with a friend whose organization was looking to trim costs in the name of efficiency. When they cut managers, it created unintended consequences for their workforce. Instead of efficiencies from fewer levels of bureaucracy, the organization found itself duplicating efforts and dropping balls because there was no one around to supervise the people or the process. To make matters worst, they were beginning to burn out the few remaining managers left who were stretched beyond capacity to manage additional headcount. This was all in the name of efficiency, which we know doesn’t always correlate to impact or efficacy. When organizations find themselves in transition, usually the people most squeezed (and scapegoated) are the middle managers. But what if middle managers actually are the glue to successful transition efforts?
We’re starting to see this trend more broadly in the marketplace as tech companies and others have targeted middle manager roles for elimination, despite evidence of their crucial day to day impact. Business Weekly calls it, the great flattening, and it’s causing a panic among the large percentage of the workforce that finds itself stuck in the middle. The headline Aki Ito writes is, “America is undergoing a rapid corporate restructuring — and middle managers are in big trouble.” If you consider the federal government’s plans to significantly reduce the size of the civil workforce, primarily focusing on middle managers, we have a crisis on our hands. How did we come to conceive of the middle manager role as so expendable and is there a way forward?
Managers aren’t scapegoats. In fact it’s the opposite.
In her article, Save the Middle Managers Aki Ito chronicles the history of how and why managers became the corporate scapegoats. It begins with a misconception of the role and the impact of middle managers. She explains, Middle managers are actually the ones who make large organizations work. Studies suggest they move the needle on a company's overall performance. By eliminating middle managers now, in the midst of an unprecedented shift to hybrid work, businesses are cutting the very people they need most to weather all the economic uncertainty. They're making it harder for the remaining managers to succeed. And they're sending a powerful message to talented would-be supervisors: Don't become one.
When a typical worker thinks about their job, the first thing that comes to mind is their direct team dynamics and their manager. Manager’s have an outsized impact on workers day to day performance, satisfaction, and retention. In times of turmoil, managers can be the ones to either steady the ship or cause employees to jump ship. While it may be in vogue to target managers as people whose roles don’t contribute directly to the bottom line, studies prove just the opposite. One study by Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at Wharton found that the bureaucratic work of managers actually contributed more to the bottom line than the creative input of individual contributors concluding, it is the role of individual managers to integrate and coordinate the innovative work of others.
Let’s show managers some love.
Managing people is a job, in and of itself and they need actual time to do it. In our work with organizations, we’ve found that when managers are up-skilled in how to do their job better, it impacts everything. There’s also a ceiling as studies have shown to what a manager’s capacity is for direct reports (according to Gallop it’s 10). We know what managers need in order to maximize their impact. Now it’s time we showed them some love and provide them with the coaching, tools, and resources to do their jobs well. Our workforce depends on them.
We’re building a movement to change how we work, and we believe managers are the key lever. To learn more about our work and get involved, connect with us at www.managereq.com.
