Liam Martin argues that traditional managers are largely redundant in asynchronous companies. Routine check-ins can be automated, so remote-first organizations have about 50% fewer managers than on-site firms, freeing more people to do actual work instead of being managed.
We don't have managers, we have leaders. Yes. So a lot of the bureaucracy, the nuts and bolts of management, when you actually look at what a manager does, the vast majority of the time it's basically just checking up on people. But if you have a system, if you have a process, if you have a platform that does that automatically for you, then you don't necessarily need to focus on that. Inside of asynchronous organizations, I found that their managerial layer was on average 50% thinner. than their on-premise counterparts. So there are more people inside of asynchronous organizations doing work than there are people managing people doing work. And again, that goes back to my innovation perspective. If there are more people that can get into what my friend Cal Newport quotes as deep work, the ability to be able to have everything at your disposal to, to solve difficult problems, then your organization will inevitably become more successful.
