Management in the Age of AI

Every few months someone declares that management is dead. Big Tech is in the middle of a Great Flattening, and there are companies that have a single Director managing 80 engineers and a fleet of agents with nobody in between. I think it’s the opposite. Management is becoming more important as AI changes how businesses work, and the job itself is shifting faster than most managers have noticed. Let’s talk about what’s changing and how to deal with it. Changes Here are the biggest themes of what is going on: AI is both making people less collaborative, and driving more need for collaboration AI is making the focus on ROI and actual business outcomes stronger than ever AI is confusing managers about how to think about performance management AI is requiring people to set new standards and culture Collaboration Two things are going on in the collaboration world. First, people are becoming less collaborative. AI has this magical way of convincing everyone that they are auteurs who just…