Reports of the death of middle management usually turn out to be highly exaggerated. But there is reason to attach a little more credence to the latest, from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey: it came just weeks after he axed thousands of jobs at his latest venture, fintech Block.
Dorsey believes the hierarchical org charts that have served since the Romans — eight employees reporting up to the next level and so on to the top — are going the way of the toga. That’s because a lot of middle management, in essence, is about taking a broad strategy and dividing it up into ever smaller parcels of responsibility, and then flowing information up the chain. AI, with access to real-time internal and customer data, can leapfrog the process and run the show. The roles remaining for humans, in this vision, are those related to actually making products, problem-solving, and coaching their peers.
Dorsey’s vision is a striking departure from the way in which companies are currently using AI. Overall subscriptions are rising. But evidence so far suggests that the technology is taking on smaller discrete parcels of work, slowing the hire of, say, junior software developers but not yet taking too big a bite out of the roles of seniors.