Best Practice Report

The Risk-Averse Middle Management Layer Is An Innovation Blocker

Incentivizing Narrow Goals Makes It Impossible To Drive Bigger Transformations

March 25th, 2022
Paul Miller, Vice President, Principal Analyst
Paul Miller Vice President, Principal Analyst
With contributors:
Pascal Matzke , Bernhard Schaffrik , Elitsa Kortenska , Marissa Fritz

Summary

Middle managers in many organizations block innovation and change. Most don’t do this deliberately; the organizational structure in which they sit restricts opportunities to break out of their silo, and the KPIs that measure their success reward the status quo. Bold changes of direction from the top of the organization and creative ideas from below meet in the middle, where they drown in a quagmire of institutionalized inertia. Future fit organizations will rethink the role of their middle managers to succeed.

Want to read the full report?

Contact us to become a client

This report is available for individual purchase ($1495).

Forrester helps business and technology leaders use customer obsession to accelerate growth. That means empowering you to put the customer at the center of everything you do: your leadership strategy, and operations. Becoming a customer-obsessed organization requires change — it requires being bold. We give business and technology leaders the confidence to put bold into action, shaping and guiding how to navigate today's unprecedented change in order to succeed.