Executives open direct lines to selected frontline staff and tighten their own oversight, telling the middle managers in between, so change moves faster around a layer that was slowing it.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Store managers at a home goods retailer knew things about the new layouts that, the new chief executive believed, his eight regional vice presidents were filtering out. Before launching anything, he met the eight together and told them what was coming: a Thursday call with twenty store managers, an open channel for store ideas, and a Monday review of regional numbers. He promised them the notes from every Thursday call within a day, and Monday figures forty-eight hours ahead of each review. Two regional vice presidents asked to join the Thursday call, and he rotated all eight through it. Layout pilots went from idea to test in three weeks instead of ten. One regional vice president left in the spring, and the other seven stayed.
Why it works
A middle manager's value comes from passing information up, translating direction down, and brokering across. Opening a direct line from the frontline takes away the first, and close executive oversight takes away the second, so their standing looks worse. Resisting gets costlier, because the executive sees slow-walking in real time and the frontline can now go around the manager. Going along is easier, since fighting on two fronts is exhausting, and managers who sign up as change champions are offered a smaller but sponsored role, which looks better. It needs an executive with time for real oversight and a transformation story to explain it.
The thinking behind it
Mark Granovetter Mark Granovetter's The Strength of Weak Ties (1973) shows that links between otherwise separate groups carry new information across a network. Middle managers have often been the only bridge between the frontline and the top. A direct call with store managers builds a second bridge, which is why information starts moving faster and why the managers lose the advantage of being the only route.
Jeffrey Pfeffer Jeffrey Pfeffer's Power in Organizations (1981) locates power in structural position, including control of information and the decision process. A middle manager's power comes from passing information up and direction down, so when executives open their own channels that position weakens with no change on the org chart. Telling the managers, and routing decisions back to them, preserves part of that role.
Michel Foucault Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) describes power that works through observation and examination, leading people to regulate themselves in advance. A weekly live review of regional numbers is an examination of that kind, and managers adjust their behavior ahead of it. Foucault's account explains why close oversight speeds compliance, and why it slides into fear when it is used to expose people.
When it fits
Executives who have concluded that a middle layer is slowing change or filtering information, and who have time to sustain real oversight, are the ones it suits. You need frontline people credible enough that their direct input carries weight, and a transformation case you can state. It fails where middle managers hold knowledge or client relationships the executive cannot replace.
How to use it well
Tell the middle managers before you start: what the new channels are, why, and what they will see from them.
- Choose frontline contributors on merit, and rotate them.
- Send managers the notes from every direct forum promptly, so decisions about their units never reach them secondhand.
- Circulate numbers ahead of any review where managers must explain them.
- Give managers a real part in the new arrangement, such as a rotation through the direct forum.
Keep the oversight genuine. Cosmetic reviews are spotted at once and cost you the managers without speeding anything up.
What it costs and where it backfires
Oversight eats your calendar, and the managers you route around may disengage or leave, taking knowledge and client ties with them. Frontline contributors can harden into a clique. It stops being oversight when the direct channels become a way to collect complaints against particular managers in secret, or when live reviews are used to embarrass them in front of peers, which turns oversight into surveillance and humiliation.
When it is used on you
Middle managers who start learning outcomes secondhand, while frontline staff present directly to executives, can ask for the decisions from the new forums in writing and stay close to the frontline people who now have direct access. Make visible the knowledge and relationships only you hold, and ask the executive to state the case for the change and your part in it.