INDUSTRIAL DESIGN: cutting middle management doesn't remove complexity, it shoves it onto the people below

Big companies are deleting their middle layer right now. The idea is that these managers add cost and drag, and a flatter org moves faster. Sometimes it does.

Most of the time it gets the problem backward. A growing company gets more complex, not less, and that layer absorbs it so the weight never lands on the people building the product. Pull it out and the work falls on individual contributors carrying their own job plus what a manager used to hold.

Then decisions drift up while execution drifts down. Managers stop managing and start doing. Leaders stop leading and start reviewing every minor decision. Everyone does a job that isn't theirs.

Complexity should move up and clarity should move down. Every system runs on that connective tissue. Cut it out and the body doesn't get simpler, it just stops.

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