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The Bottom Line

Unbossing: Can We Work Without Managers?

The Bottom Line

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Business

4.6606 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Can businesses operate without managers? It's an idea Amazon, Meta and Citigroup are exploring. Evan hears from the leaders of three companies who've already tried working that way, but with varying degrees of success.

Guests: Chris May: Founder of Mayden Hazel Brown: CEO of Cornerstone Luke Kyte: Operations Director of Reddico

Presenter: Evan Davis Producers: Nick Holland and Bob Howard Sound: James Beard Production Coordinator: Katie Morrison Editor: Matt Willis

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:05.1

Thanks for downloading this episode of the Bottom Line podcast.

0:08.0

It has extra content.

0:09.4

We couldn't squeeze into the radio version.

0:12.1

Now, you go to work, you love your job, but you hate your boss.

0:16.0

What do they even do all day other than to stand around interfering?

0:20.5

Well, numerous companies have come to that view

0:23.7

in a way and are trying to strip away layers of middle management. The word to describe this is

0:30.0

unbossing. Meta Amazon Citigroup, to name a few, are trying it, flattening the hierarchy.

0:39.5

And you know that while growth and productivity are much talked about, is it possible that we can strip out middle managers? We can cut

0:45.1

costs and we can let self-managing teams get on with the job. Well, what is an unbossed company

0:53.2

like and is it worth becoming one?

0:55.6

I have three guests with experience of setting up or working in the managerless businesses,

1:01.8

or not managerless, but reduced manager businesses with varying degrees of success.

1:07.8

Let's start with Chris May.

1:09.7

Now, he's the founder of Maiden. It's a company based in Bath.

1:12.8

It makes software systems for the NHS. Chris, tell us about how you do it, what you do that makes

1:21.1

Maiden, if you like, a flat hierarchy company. Okay. The way I always like to start this is if you go

1:26.9

to any business conference and you ask the

1:28.8

audience, how many of you manage other people? Almost everyone will put their hands up. If you then ask

1:35.6

them how many of you need to be managed by someone else, virtually nobody will put their hands up.

1:41.3

And you can see the virtual hierarchy is just collapsing like

...

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