This makes me wonder, is it truly so? Every organization starts without managers and they are added later once the organization grows but if they are not really needed, why is every organization adding them?
That is a realy good question. I don't know whether there is a clear answer. How come efficient passionate startups eventually end up as rent-seeking slothful bureaucratic mega-corporations. When does that 'start' to happen?
It is not just 'cargo-cult' or 'enterprise-envy'. I think it goes deeper. My current feeling is that middle management is something that is naturally lurking in the wings, and expresses itself the moment the overhead can be carried. Caricatured: Bottom up there's people looking for a way to escape 'working at the coalface', and start the innate pecking order/ hierarchy battles. Top down there is the desire of the owner to create some distance, and in many cases also the latent idea that if some proficiencies could be isolated into a single specialist, the remaining 'resources' could be sourced cheaper. It self reinforces since as 'overhead' the middle management layer crates make-work to assert its existence. Furthermore, it asserts the 'company as a value funnel', since it is a model that disemancipates each individual making sure they can't easily venture out on their own.
So the middle management pattern could be an expression waiting to happen as a result of natural forces, not as a result of direct 'needs' or 'efficiency' in value creation in its own right, but just for the sake of 'enterprise creation' itself.
It is not just 'cargo-cult' or 'enterprise-envy'. I think it goes deeper. My current feeling is that middle management is something that is naturally lurking in the wings, and expresses itself the moment the overhead can be carried. Caricatured: Bottom up there's people looking for a way to escape 'working at the coalface', and start the innate pecking order/ hierarchy battles. Top down there is the desire of the owner to create some distance, and in many cases also the latent idea that if some proficiencies could be isolated into a single specialist, the remaining 'resources' could be sourced cheaper. It self reinforces since as 'overhead' the middle management layer crates make-work to assert its existence. Furthermore, it asserts the 'company as a value funnel', since it is a model that disemancipates each individual making sure they can't easily venture out on their own.
So the middle management pattern could be an expression waiting to happen as a result of natural forces, not as a result of direct 'needs' or 'efficiency' in value creation in its own right, but just for the sake of 'enterprise creation' itself.