Middle managers are crippling our entire economy

There tends to be two approaches to the idea of middle managers:

1. This is where the real work is done and the trains keep moving.
2. They’re mostly sucking halfway-decent salaries and doing absolutely nothing.

There are other perspectives on middle managers, sure — but most tend to fall into those two camps. (1) is usually what middle managers say about themselves, and (2) is usually those that report to middle managers. Executives vary between (1) and (2) — if you’ve got a middle manager who hits targets for you and deflects the bullshit, you probably say (1) a lot. If your margins are stinking up the joint in a quarter and you’re looking to wield the axe, you probably say (2). Work is fickle.

Now look, middle managers have it tough. Executives don’t have to manage up (and often barely manage down) and rank-and-file employees don’t manage down. Middle managers are some of the only people in a company trying to go in multiple directions. That is hard.

For my money, though, middle management is useless. If your job is to “make the trains run” or whatever, then what happens when your company buys a CRM like Oracle? Now your executives can go to Starbucks, open an app on the line, and see all the numbers they need to run their business. What value are you now, middle…