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by nine_zeros 459 days ago
And a large amount of that work will disappear because a significant amount of that work is merely maintaining reporting and answering to bosses ad-hoc.

Removal of bosses is literally more efficient because it reduces the amount of work per unit person.
1 comments
vkou 459 days ago
They aren't removing your boss, you still have one, except your new boss (who was your former skip level) will expect all the outputs that your previous boss produced.

From you.

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nine_zeros 459 days ago
> They aren't removing your boss, you still have one, except your new boss (who was your former skip level) will expect all the outputs that your previous boss produced.

But you do realize that previously, you had to produce outputs for your boss and skip - but now, you only need to produce for skip?

For 2 bosses, the hypothetical low/mid manager has to consider 2 bosses perspectives, 2 bosses politics, 2 bosses promos, 2 bosses peer teams, 2 bosses meetings, 2 bosses technical skill, 2 bosses status reports, 2 bosses committees, 2 bosses ad-hoc demands.

With 1 boss, that work reduces to 1 bosses perspectives, 1 bosses politics, 1 bosses promos, 1 bosses peer teams, 1 bosses meetings, 1 bosses technical skill, 1 bosses status reports, 1 bosses ad-hoc demands.

Removal of 1 boss led to 50% decline in work for 1 low/mid manager. Scale that to 10 low/mid managers, you now have a large amount of time freed up - SIMPLY because 1 single org chart bottleneck has been removed.

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vkou 459 days ago
If your boss was any good at his job, he did most of the reporting and communication to keep the skip level happy.

Either he wasn't, or you are just not aware of all the work he was doing.

A good manager is a shit umbrella. Most of my managers have been good.

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nine_zeros 459 days ago
> If your boss was any good at his job, he did most of the reporting and communication to keep the skip level happy.

A big IF - and now the company has to hire more HR and more bosses to check on this boss. Create more bureaucracy around checking "if they are any good".

> did most of the reporting and communication to keep the skip level happy

And someone had to do reporting and communication to this boss in the first place. Thus, a boss requires someone/some people below them to spend time reporting to them, and themselves needs to spend time reporting above them to the skip.

From the big bosses perspective, this miniature boss's existence added more work to the company than required - thus, leading to the original post.

Just yanking layers to minimal required bosses is enough to reduce total work.

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