Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
we're here because your heightened awareness deserves heightened entertainment the last show with david cooper
Chapter 2: Why are companies saying goodbye to middle managers?
Middle managers, say goodbye to them. They may be disappearing and companies are replacing them with player coaches, org leads, a healthy dash of AI. Corporations are dressing this all up as exciting changes. But is it just layoffs with some lipstick on? What could possibly go wrong? I'm here with someone who's recently written about this.
She's a leadership and workplace correspondent at Business Insider. Her name, Sarah E. Needleman. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Chapter 3: What roles are replacing middle managers in organizations?
So when you heard companies like Meta and Block are trying to retire the phrase middle manager, what problem are they trying to solve? Is this innovation or is this just cost cutting with fun branding?
It could be a little bit of both. Basically, companies have been trimming their middle manager ranks for the past several years in the name of efficiency and speed. They say it helps with driving innovation.
Chapter 4: Is the shift to player-coaches just a rebranding of layoffs?
So they're really reducing layers to remove bureaucracy and get things done. Lately, Met and Block have gone down this path, but they are approaching it with different job titles and They said they're offloading some of the traditional work that a dedicated middle manager would do to AI.
And so the people who are still doing, in some cases, still overseeing other workers or providing guidance, but they're also doing some of the hands-on work. And there's really just a Removal of the dedicated middle manager where that's like the only thing you do is manage other people. That's really seems to be fading out.
And now the tasks that they handle will go to AI and they would do other things.
I want to make a quick disclaimer and apologize to anyone I used to work with in advance. I used to be a middle manager at a big tech company. Well, is a line manager someone who manages like engineers directly at a tech company? Is that considered middle management?
That would be a form of middle management. I mean, it's going to differ from company to company, but generally speaking, yes.
The biggest part of my job, I had seven reports, was just dealing with their BS, like listening to them, sitting there in meetings and having them vent and then going and talking to the people they're having conflict with. It was all social stuff. And yes, it was annoying, but I feel like that stuff was needed for these people's sanity.
What are people going to do if they have problems at work and they have like a manager with 20 reports who also has other tasks to do than manage them?
That is part of the challenge for these managers where they have much bigger. So there's fewer managers, but they're managing more people. And so they're really stretched thin. I spoke to a middle manager recently who has about two dozen reports and she said every single minute of her day is taken up.
There's no downtime to just kind of think it's her calendar is packed from minute to minute to minute. And so. For the worker, yeah, there's less of an opportunity to treat your manager as your pseudo-therapist. Yeah. Which, you know, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe they're turning to AI to vent and get that advice now, possibly.
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