Why managers matter : the perils of the bossless company / Nicolai J. Foss & Peter G. Klein.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Fire all the managers?
The bossless company. Welcome to Flatland ; Bosslessness and our changing culture ; Anticipating Flatland : early calls for flatter hierarchy ; Old wine in new bottles? ; What the bossless company narrative gets right-and what it gets wrong ; Show us the evidence!
Why hierarchy works. Management isn't going away ; What is a company anyway? ; The worst form of organization-except for all the others : the case for hierarchy ; Hierarchy isn't a dirty word ; Why you (may) need more hierarchy ; Hierarchy promotes innovation and entrepreneurship ; Hierarchy in the twenty-first century ; The highly exaggerated death of the manager

"People in the business world are struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing economy. Beset by transformational forces, managers are bombarded with a bewildering array of schemes for how to be a boss and make an organization tick. It's easy to be seduced by futurist fantasies where every company has the culture of a startup, where employees in wacky, whimsical office settings champion the end of old-fashioned corporate hierarchy. Autonomous employees liberated from hierarchies and bosses that oppress people, we are told, are the foundation for breakthrough performance. Be careful what you wish for say Nicolai Foss and Peter Klein. In their important rethinking of the crucial nature of hierarchy and how to be a boss today, they provide the evidence that world-changing issues such as the proliferation of artificial intelligence, economic disruption, empowered knowledge workers, and black swan events such as the pandemic actually make hierarchy and the job of the manager more important than ever. Companies and societies, they show, need authority and hierarchy to coordinate work, including creative work. More surprisingly, Foss and Klein illustrate how the creative use of authority and hierarchy help companies be more agile and flexible. This is not command and control and bossing people around, but the clever use of hierarchy, using the authority of the boss to create highly effective organization where managers focus on creating an environment in which educated, motivated people and teams can thrive"-- Provided by publisher.