On LinkedIn, Xiao Zhang shared an interesting post about “The Quiet Collapse of the Middle” [Management], where she posed three questions for middle managers to help rescue themselves
Could You Put Yourself First?
Could We Share Some of the Weight?
Could You Steady Your Beacon?
Wonderful questions.
She made me think about summarising our Open Management tactics for relieving this issue.
At the macro level, it requires systemic and cultural change. Managers should not be in this position, the system is failing them, and the executive is responsible. Executives need to understand the systemic issues that cause peope to be unable to perform.
At a micro level, managers should understand it’s not their fault. They shouldn’t have to take (total) responsibility for their own self care and personal performance.
Second, the rationale for eliminating middle management is distributing workload onto teams through empowerment to self-management. So as Xiao say, managers should be doing exactly that.
Third, and as a result of that, managers shift their entire purpose from work management to (mostly) people management: attracting, steering, nurturing, protecting, representing.
Finally, they should also be managing upwards to argue for that systemic change. In particular, (1) measure managers and staff differently, (2) stop expecting 100% utilisation in systems, (3) limit WIP through portfolio prioritisation and demand management.
If executives don’t want to behave differently then they can’t expect new ways of managing and working. Oops I’ve circled back to the macro changes.