Middle Management Same Old Same Old?

I have been digging into some of my older books this week - mostly from the 70s and 80s. And you know what?

Not much has changed.

Sure, sure, HOW we communicate has changed. Have we changed WHAT we communicate? The realities of what it feels like to be a middle manager in today's large companies seems the same or worse. No better.

Sure, sure, technology has changed our processes. And yet our processes still seem dysfunctional.

Sure, sure, our willingness to be inclusive has increased. But I don't think that people feel any more appreciated, on the whole.

Many of these books talked about the coming revolution in business. They prognosticated that the world of work would look very different in 20 years.

Yes, some things have changed, but I think the overall conditions felt by many middle managers are not too different.

This sounds like a glass-is-half-empty post, but it is not. Perhaps the need for a powerful link between strategy and execution is fundamental to business - particularly large and complex organizations. Perhaps this element will not change and should not change.

In the 80s and 90s, middle managers had targets on their backs, heads, and private parts. Delayering was the management system du jour and the last thing you wanted to be was a middle manager.

Being a middle manager is tough and it ought to be - it's a challenging job that is not for everyone. Middle managers are in the thick of things and are at the center of conflicts and problems - the corporate mucky muck. It's the nature of the job. Ain't it great?

I think my publisher is almost out of them, but if you are a middle manager and you have not yet checked out my first book, High Impact Middle Management, you might find it interesting. I will eventually revise it when this print run is out, but the fundamentals will remain the same.

Middle Management is not a four letter word - it is much more than this.

I wonder how things might have been different if, in the 70s and 80s, we acknowledged the critical role middle managers played instead of vilifying them to satisfy short term Wall Street logic.

Sure, sure, there may be waste and inefficiency in your middle management function. But why are you surprised - it's where everything gets dumped.

Comments

[Charlie]

I agree. Nothing much has change for the middle management. Even though there are actual changes brought by a lot of things, our processes and decisions are still the same.

[Howie]

I also believe that those changes didn't make a big difference on how people make their decisions and processes. If we are looking for changes in human behavior, we should focus on the attitude.

[Chris Bailey]

Lisa, I share your frustration. The middle is a tough place to be.

Another question to ask is: have our attitudes of the corporation changed in the past 20-30 years? Has there been a shift in our thinking for what a business can be? For what our work can mean? There is so much squandered potential because many of our business leaders have not aimed high enough. We're only beginning to demand this, though. As employees and managers, we now want more from our work. I also helps that, as customers, we now want more corporate responsibility.

Maybe this truly is our time to reach for what was promised decades ago. Maybe we needed these hard times of the 80s and 90s to show us the path we can only take now. Or maybe I'm just a starry-eyed idealist. Keep the faith.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Excellent questions, Chris. Maybe this is the time and we can be key catalysts!