I read this story about Meta asking their managers and directors to become individual contributors or quit, with a tinge of amusement. It seems to be borne out watching layer upon layer of management fail to add any value to the organization whatsoever. Have long held that people who need to be actively hand-held and managed are bad hires. Even high-school and college interns that have worked for me over the years have proven to be capable of self-direction with some basic steering. If a person that young and inexperienced does not take extensive management effort, there is no reason that someone with a few years on their resume should.
The greater the number of management layers in the organization, the higher the level of dysfunction and lower the quality of production - people are too lost managing up, down and sideways to actually work. The ideal situation would be for teams to be organized by executive management and given team goals to deliver on that can be broken down into individual goals collaboratively with a team coach guiding the process. There could be group goals that roll up into the overall team goal. Everyone has marching orders and go do their thing. The team coach is there to resolve logistical challenges. Show-stopper issues are brought up to management for resolution.
No one manages anyone. People do their job and do it well. I can count the number of times in my career than I have seen a truly high-functioning team but on those rare occasions that I have, every last person in the group had clarity of vision and the desire to do a first rate job. They were a team of professionals that took pride in what they put their name behind. That is all it has ever taken. Their manager of such a team is almost invisible, focused only on clearing their path - not managing them or their work.
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