Realizing Middle Management’s Strategic Value (cont)
Recognize the link between middle management, core capability, and competitive advantage.
Most fundamentally, reengineering should occur with an awareness of the link between middle management and firm competitiveness. Effective delayering can be guided by an understanding of the contributions required of surviving middle mangers. The goal is to cut cost and increase responsiveness, not cripple dynamic capability.
Identify those middle managers with the appropriate skills, experiences, and potential to thrive within the new organization.
Not all middle managers are created equally, and certain middle managers are better equipped than others to thrive within the reengineered organization. Our research shows the importance of boundary spanning experience as one criteria for discriminating among middle managers. Another consideration is that middle management in the reengineered organization requires different skills. In the long run, developmental experiences that foster teamwork and a strategic mind set can be avoided only at the cost of eroding core capability.
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