A New Role for Management

All of this autonomy greatly modifies management's role. Things don't work the same in a company where coworkers are free to coordinate their own activities and in another where layers of managers insist on controlling everything. Supervising 20 to 30 people instead of 7 to 10 requires a different demeanor. Managing people is no longer a question of controlling their work down to the slightest detail.

Incapable of tracking the daily activities of his or her staff and forced to trust them, a manager who is under pressure from his or her own boss must move quickly. Even if he or she is talented, the manager won't have time for small talk. Individual conversations will be less frequent and inevitably shorter because time ...

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