Modern Workforce Part 2: Which way?

What we have done to ourselves?
Where has all the knowledge gone?
This is a clash of cultures, theories, biology, and other factors.
The mantra for many years (and ‘big brains’) was
'get rid of middle management',
'let's adopt best practices (standardize technology / software)',
'let's ‘streamline’ this company',
'let's have an infinite resource work force model'.

All of these go against the tenants of what makes us sane human beings or in another way of saying it, this is against the fabric of reality.

Companies are run by people,
people are the greatest resource.
It is not technology, it is not location, it is not even in the end product.
Knowledge is what differs us from the hunter/gatherers of 10,000 years ago.

The whispers in the 'professional' MBAs was that 'middle management' who were generally folks who worked their way through the levels of the organization to a place of semi-importance, a well experienced junction between the ivory tower of executives and the grime of reality.

They should look at one case study that shows that these folks are needed:
a company ‘older then even the concept of ‘corporations’ that knows the strength of their experience and knowledge:
The Military.

There is officers and the enlisted.
The enlisted range from fresh off the streets to battle-hardened multi-theatre veterans. The likewise is true for officers, from recent college graduates to four star ranked officers.
The officers are management and leadership of the military. They design the structures, the rules, the discipline, what weapons will be 'generally' used, and the tactics.
The enlisted not only are the ones who follow orders, they essentially know what actually works vs. what officers think that work. They develop the ‘bug fixes’, ‘the jurisprudence’, ‘find in the gaps in the rules so that things actually get done’.

This is called experience or 'knowledge' or an old term 'wisdom'. even the least intelligent person can make you feel like an idiot when it comes to something they have been doing all their lives.

Relating this back to the modern workforce:
In the work force, there is Product Owners, a mysterious mage of the office. They are basically the wizen folks who know where everything is, the good ones have long rolodexes of the who is who of the company, they know what technology belongs to what person, they know who decided that this procedure should be done this way. The problem though is companies never identify these folks, they sometimes lay them off, sometimes they never want to be identified (they would come out of the trenches and would need to advise vs. fight).

This is the same thing that happens with Senior Software Engineers (okay, so.. perhaps the writer knows about this particular troupe). They know their systems so well, that noone knows why it does what it does, or why they even do their jobs in the first place. We have automated things to the point where people are like George on the Jetsons, hit the button, it does 'something'. The Senior Software Engineer says ‘Yeah, it does this, but I don’t know ‘why I wrote it’ ask the Product Owner’.

With the nature of a cutting of positions within the work force, they are trying to take a 'bureaucracy' design, where each part of an organization is done by a different silo back into the 'rogue/bard'. This is only possible with experienced person, but they want to treat this experienced person like they are simply a 'cog'.

They want their cake and eat it to, they want someone who will do it all, but also.. should not think outside of their box, obey them even if doesn't make sense.

We have an aging population who know the systems that were built, the reason why they were built, the lessons learned, the issues that occurred. However, like many things they have gotten comfortable and just continue to do what they have always done. They may not be making the big ‘thing’ to push to the next level.

Leaders are supposed to be the ones who provide this ‘push’ and sadly the way things have developed is there is a ‘groupthink’ at the top. The idea is to push forward we need to ‘modernize’ or ‘omni-channel’ or ‘digital transformation aka ‘let’s be like everyone else’’. Welcome to the new work place, where you are only a cog in a machine, your brain is downloaded into a knowledge base, and people who are doomed to answer phones and have no need to learn anything do most of the work. Your job is only a minor existance so that you can birth something ‘new’ and then your up for laying off or firing (after they suck your brain out to maintain said ‘new’ thing.) However, this goes against the non-digital nature of our existance as humans. We can’t recall everything, we don’t know how to share it all during a short period of time. We are not machines, but the ‘powers that be’ think we are.

Executive View of the Workforce (In order of years of experience of the work force below them).
0-2 Years (New Ideas, Most Flexible, Most willing to work hard, needs alot of guidance)
2-4 Years (Experienced, knows how to get their work done, need a bit of guidance)
4-6 Years (Well-Experienced, can set up systems to have less experienced be able to get things done)
6-10 Years (They have their own brains, they provide knowledge but they are difficult to work as they are ‘inflexible’)
10+ Years (Useful for Administration, but they lack flexibility and creativity)

How Companies (really) work: (The below is reproduced on a ‘product or silo’ within a company)

Executives define the general strategy, sometimes focusing on a small particular piece of the business (the vision thing) and clarifier of purposes.

Middle Management (Senior Supervisors): They keep both executives and managers happy (the ‘Priests’ of the Corporate world). They generally have alot of knowledge and have been around for a while, they know where the skeletons are, there is always a few that may be just filling a spot.

Supervisors: In General, they could be ‘new’ or ‘old’ and the quality of their knowledge of their work is harder to pin down, generally lean on middle management on guidance.

Product Owners (more of a distinction then a job position): They are senior workers generally who are not supervisors (usually) but are the ones who are the living knowledge base (FOR THEIR PRODUCT).

Senior Workers: They know how things work, They know what works. (depending on their actual position)

Workers: Similar to Supervisors, generally lean on Senior workers for guidance

How ‘They’ want it to work:

Executives (really unchanged, other then each of the silos communicate with each other more freely)
(but due to distrust and leadership failure, this becomes difficult).

Middle Management (Why? Executives should be able to communicate directly without the need of ‘Priests’ to their subordinates).

Supervisors: You should be the Product Owners as well, we don’t need workers to fill the roll of knowledge keepers! However, ‘Senior’ workers don’t need you to supervise them while they do their jobs though, so you better be useful.

Product Owners (see above)

Senior Workers: You will get the things done (like you have always done) but you will not actually do it. You will be the teachers but not actually do the job. (here download your brain into this computer here).

Workers: You are replaceable and interchangeable between the various silos/products. Knowledge Bases exist for you to find what you need to know and do.
As you can see, this has the Senior Workers basically made into the lynchpin, and are taking on the position of at least 3 other jobs.