Rethinking What It Means to Be a Manager in the Modern Workplace
Managers Managers Managers
It seems like 2023 is going to be the year managers get back in the spotlight. Depending on where you sit and what your organization is like, managers are either your best shot at keeping your people engaged or the reason why they are leaving. I’ve written a few pieces on various topics related to managers (here, here and here) but three pieces came out this week that I think paint a good picture of what’s happening.
#1) Leaner and Faster Means Less Managers
First, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg gave an update on his “Year of Efficiency” and managers are front and center. Meta is announcing restructuring plans to ‘flatten’ the organization, removing many people managers, shutting down low priority projects and reducing future hiring. They will layoff about 10,000 employees and shut down about 5,000 open roles. Core at this, is the flattening, and either removing managers or sending them back to IC roles.
His rationale for this, in the name of productivity, is two fold: 1) flatter is faster, and 2) leaner is better. By removing layers of managers, teams can go faster, and less people fighting for projects means less potentially projects that shouldn’t be worked on in the first place.
He writes:
“It’s tempting to think that a project is net positive…
