Middle management isn't going anywhere
On the unloved layer of corporate hierarchy, blockchain, and why "agents" aren't going to flatten the org chart at places that deserve to remain in business
A few short years ago, the word "blockchain" was used like an incantation: People inserted it without rhyme or reason, suggesting it could fix any business or managerial problem. It was an all-purpose business catchphrase: "Blockchain is going to revolutionize [fill in the blank]". Few people had any idea what they were actually proposing, of course, but the element of the new and exotic caused many an audience member to lose their critical faculties.
■ Lots of blockchain-based promises are still made, of course, but "AI" has had a better run of growth lately. It's on such a hot streak that people are making straight-faced prognostications like arguing that AI will widely replace middle management because tasks will automatically assigned to both humans and automated agents.
■ Among many problems with this concept is the evidence that people are far more entranced with the "look and feel" of work, rather than work itself. Facebook/Meta just got caught impersonating living celebrities with dedicated chatbots -- when the obvious permission structures to make such use of names and likenesses already exists. We already know about as much about Taylor Swift as we could possibly need, yet someone at Facebook has been off programming a chatbot to fake even more.
■ Middle management is never going to be sexy, but there's a reason it has persisted long past the automation of many other tasks: Just like the US military has always depended upon a range of officers from the generals and admirals on down to the lieutenants, it has also depended upon non-commissioned officers to get real work done.
■ Cheerleaders for AI are going to get some things right, but when they imagine revolutionary turmoil in the workplace, they're largely just echoing the blockchain hype of a few years ago with new lyrics. As long as anyone can still define strategy, operations, and tactics as important but different levels of approaching a mission, there will always remain a place for humans to handle that middle ground.
