Time to ‘delayer’ is code for first, let’s take out all the managers
It’s an interesting time to publish a book for managers. My new book, Wake Up Calls for Managers — Insights to Sharpen Focus and Elevate Results, will be published this summer at a time when large organizations (yet again) have concluded that the only logical response to the world of AI is to eviscerate their middle-management layers. I don’t agree. While there’s no doubt the role of the manager must change in our world (for reasons including, and beyond, AI), I argue that this managerial ‘delayering’ is short-sighted and wrong-headed.
Look closely at the data and commentary, and it’s easy to see that these ‘delayering’ efforts are not the result of process efficiencies or the emergence of ‘agentic managers,’ but rather are easy cost-cutting in the face of massive capital expenditures on AI-related technologies.
We’ve seen this movie before.
Delayering is a common response to business shocks and technology changes.
Anyone who has been around the sun for a few decades has seen the gutting of management layers before. It’s predictable.
Organizations tend to grow and add layers over time, and then a shock to the larger system catalyzes efforts to flatten things out, decentralize decision-making, and do more with fewer managers. Think: the birth of the web, the dot-com crash, 9/11, the financial crash, and now the emergence of AI, plus a few recessions, all as earlier catalysts for the predictable flattening efforts.
Management layers are easy targets. The costs are visible and easy to make. The logic seems sound. Cut out these costs, and for the remaining managers, dramatically increase the number of people reporting to them, pile on more direct (contributor) work, and expect technology to fill any gaps. And while I’m a big fan of reducing bureaucracy and eliminating structural friction that gets in the way of speed, agility, and learning in our organizations, leading off by killing the manager role doesn’t work.
“This time it’s different,” say the pundits.
My response: “Well, kind of, maybe, but mostly not.”
There’s no doubt the world is changing, with AI playing an outsized role. Yet the delayering efforts are short-sighted and ignore the critical issues our organizations face as they work to gain purchase in this rapidly changing environment.
Reality check on the current situation in our organizations.
These same cost-cutters, happily ‘delayering’ their organizations, ignore the reality that in most workplaces there’s a dangerous level of employee disengagement, too little innovation, poor leadership development, little to no succession planning, substandard quality, declining customer satisfaction, and the risk of obsolescence due to new competitors armed with fresh approaches at creating value for customers. Add in extreme levels of burnout resulting in high turnover, and the situation is dire.
Eliminating management layers does not cure these ailments. Cutting managers out of the picture, or rendering them so stretched thin that they’re ineffective at supporting their team members, is just…dumb management foisted upon us by misguided leadership.
The ‘delayerers’ ignore the need for greater organizational agility and adaptability in our uncertain world. They don’t understand the changed world of strategy, and, as the carpenter left with only a hammer, they see every problem as a nail to be pounded into place.
AI does not replace the manager. It shifts the work of those in the manager’s role.
The real opportunity here: redefine the role of manager
The old model of the manager and the work of managing need to disappear. It’s time to eradicate costly taskmasters, the idea of ‘supervision,’ and the old compliance-and-control model of management.
The successful individuals I encounter in today’s managerial roles do something different from supervising. They’re not in place to be in charge. Instead, their daily work ranges from coaching to clarifying, guiding, teaching, helping, and cheerleading. All these non-supervisory activities are vital to building groups of engaged, motivated contributors.
The focal point for everyone in a managerial role must be building a healthy working environment that meets the organization’s needs.
If innovation through collaboration is essential, then the manager’s work must focus on fostering this environment. Obstacles must be removed, creativity must be stimulated, and experimentation must be rewarded.
Learning is job one for today’s and tomorrow’s organization, and part of the new role is both facilitating learning and ensuring that learning is reflected in an ever-adapting strategy.
If productivity is the issue, then the manager must help team members streamline processes using AI.
This emphasis on defining the manager’s role in terms of what the team needs, given the mission, requires abandoning the supervisory mentality and adopting a coaching and sponsoring mentality.
No one needs to be managed (and what’s in a name?)
Instead of throwing away managers who are crucial cogs in so much of what we need to do to “survive, reset, and thrive” in this world, let’s relabel and redefine the role.
Instead of saddling individuals with an industrial-revolution moniker that implies a supervisory mentality, let’s consider the work we want and need these individuals to do to support our team members.
Managers must now be teachers, coaches, accountability partners, and trailblazers who clear the way for the rest of us to do what we need to. They are bureaucracy busters, key cogs in strategy, and essential to creating an environment where good people can do their best work.
No one needs to be managed. Everyone needs the type of support I’ve described here from individuals who fulfill the new definition of the manager role.
The Bottom line
Paraphrasing Mark Twain, the death of the manager role is highly exaggerated. The reset in how the role is defined and executed, however, must happen.
I think the best next generation of managers, or whatever label we give them, will be the individuals who learn to do what I’ve described in this article without formal authority.
They are boundary spanners, team leads, initiative leaders, and informal coaches. They build relationships, seize opportunities that often hide in plain sight, adjust plans on the fly based on new insights, and develop the people around them.
For you, the opportunities to create value with and through others and with AI are amazing. The content in this collection is intended to support the new and next generation of individuals who are doing the heavy lifting to help our organizations succeed.
