Why companies need middle managers

EVERY LARGECEO business has a boss and minions, who do most of the work. What comes between the corner office and the shop floor is a matter of managerial preference. Some firms’ organisational charts are towering , with staff piled into rigid hierarchies stuffed with assorted supervisors. More fashionable of late has been the pancake organigram: fewer layers of workers reporting to a smaller cadre of chieftains. As appealing as such “flat” organisations might seem, the thinning of managerial ranks comes at great cost.Vice-presidents, area supervisors and other department heads were once the corporate machine’s central cogs. Now such middle managers are derided as pound-shop s, 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.