Leading through “The Great Flattening”

June 3, 2025

The monday.com weekly

monday.com’s take on the latest work trends - sent on Tuesdays

Inside this issue

Workplace trends
The AI corner
Leading through “The Great Flattening”
Water cooler chatter
Question of the week
Just for laughs
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Workplace trends

Management

Tech companies slash middle managers to move faster

Major technology companies are cutting management layers to speed up decision-making and reduce bureaucracy. Microsoft eliminated 6,000 positions while increasing each manager's direct reports, Intel's new CEO emphasized leaner teams, and Amazon boosted its ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15%. Management experts at MIT say this approach makes sense in rapidly changing business environments, allowing companies to move faster without navigating multiple approval layers. The strategy pushes decision-making closer to customers and technology, enabling lower-level employees to generate ideas and act quickly. However, organizational development specialists caution that companies risk undermining future leadership development if they prioritize speed over building cross-functional management skills.

Finance

EU plans first stress test of hedge funds and private equity firms

European regulators are preparing their first comprehensive stress test of non-bank financial institutions including hedge funds, private equity firms, and pension funds to identify potential vulnerabilities in the broader financial system. The initiative reflects growing concerns about lightly regulated financial groups that now account for about a quarter of the $20 trillion loan market in the Eurozone. Since the 2008 financial crisis, lending has increasingly shifted from traditional banks to alternative institutions with fewer regulatory constraints, with Eurozone bank lending to these firms tripling to $6.3 trillion by 2023. The stress test aims to determine whether these institutions help stabilize financial markets during crises or make them worse, as regulators work to prevent another major economic meltdown.

The AI corner

Healthcare

AI is eavesdropping on doctor visits

Healthcare systems are rapidly adopting AI-powered listening technology that automatically generates medical notes during patient appointments, eliminating hours of administrative work for physicians. Major health networks including Stanford Health Care, Mass General Brigham, and University of Michigan Health are deploying AI scribes that capture conversations and create comprehensive medical records, patient summaries, and billing data by visit's end. Mass General Brigham's pilot with over 2,500 physicians showed doctors reduced daily documentation time from 90 minutes to under 30 minutes. However, experts raise privacy concerns in an industry prone to data breaches, plus monthly licensing costs ranging from $200 to $600 per doctor, making these tests expensive to scale.

Social Intelligence

AI can’t read the room

AI struggles to understand basic human social interactions and body language, revealing a significant gap between machine and human perception. Johns Hopkins University researchers tested 356 AI models against nearly 2,000 human volunteers to evaluate how well they interpret physical cues between people in videos and images. While humans largely agreed on their assessments of scenes like a chef speaking to a colleague or a father interacting with his toddler, AI models consistently failed to determine what people were doing or whether they were even communicating. Google DeepMind experts acknowledge AI's current limitations but predict that as the technology becomes embedded in devices like smart glasses and robots, it could eventually improve in picking up social cues and help people who struggle socially by providing real-time feedback about conversations and interactions.

Leading through “The Great Flattening”

By monday.com

Red tape has a way of slowing innovative ideas or even stopping them in their tracks – and some organizations are ready for a change.

In recent months, companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have adopted flatter organizational models to minimize bureaucracy, enhance efficiency, and expedite decision-making, according to Business Insider. So, they are reducing the number of managers in the organization and giving each remaining leader more direct reports to increase their “span of control,” a trend which the media has dubbed “The Great Flattening.”

Whether your company is adopting this same strategy, or you’re simply inheriting new team members or responsibilities as a result of a restructuring, you probably need to adapt your ways of working. Updating your management methods to address business transformations might help you support your employees through the transition and even build a tighter team as a result.

So, how can you scale your leadership to accommodate more team members and meet new challenges?

Communicate changes with empathy

As with any shake-up, your team might feel uncertain or anxious about the new direction. For example, certain employees may worry that being a part of a bigger team will mean they receive less attention from you as their manager. Try to keep this in mind when communicating the shift, and make sure you listen to everyone’s concerns with an open mind. Reassure them that you will make time for them and are committed to giving them what they need to be successful. Also, try to emphasize the positive aspects of the change, such as the opportunities for your team to make a bigger impact or focus on the work they are passionate about.

Lean into diversity

If your team has taken on more responsibility or if you find yourself with more members, consider all the incredible opportunities you now have to make your work even more meaningful. A larger team means more opportunities to leverage diverse expertise and skill sets. So, build excitement and momentum around new projects by having a brainstorming session. Ask for everyone’s best ideas for new programs and processes. Write them all down and encourage everyone to build on each other’s thoughts. Then, assess which ideas are feasible with the available resources and develop a plan of action to explore them in greater detail.

Delegate, delegate, delegate

When you are given more direct reports, you need to devote more time to one-on-ones, employee development, and culture-building, so you’ll have to delegate some of your other tasks to make room in your day. Pay attention to the core strengths of all your team members and consider asking them about hidden skills or interests they have that they rarely get to utilize in their everyday job. Use this intel to figure out who can take specific tasks off your plate. You might even find that employees are excited and even more engaged as a result of the new responsibilities. And while delegation might be nerve-wracking, try to be open to your team’s way of working. Give them as much trust and autonomy as possible so that they can run with their projects and you can have the time and mental capacity to invest in and support your team members.

Audit your processes

Communication becomes more complex as teams grow, and you might find that what worked in the past isn’t going to cut it anymore. To address this issue, make sure you still have the right communication channels and processes in place. Think about collaborating with your team to audit all your communication platforms, scheduling tools, and project management protocols, and be direct about asking if anything needs to be updated. Once everyone has settled on the right methods, write them all down and keep the document in a location where everyone can easily reference it. Doing this will reduce confusion and get your now larger team working together.

Leverage AI for more efficiency

Whenever possible, use AI tools to streamline processes, allowing you to focus more on strategy and team-building work. Maybe you use an AI notetaker to transcribe and synthesize your meeting notes with key action items for each team member, so you don’t have to send follow-ups. Or perhaps you set your project management software to automate assignments and deadline reminders, letting everyone check on progress without a bunch of back and forth. Research tools based on your specific needs and ask other leaders what tech they love. Don’t be afraid to try a few. When you find what fits, it can save you hours each week, without having to ask more from your team.

Water cooler chatter

Elon Musk says he'll remain Tesla CEO for at least five more years unless he dies. The billionaire made the commitment amid speculation about his future at the company. Tesla's board chair recently denied reports that directors were already scouting for a replacement CEO, while Musk emphasized he's more concerned about maintaining control over the company than his controversial pay package.

"I can't be sitting there and wondering if I'm going to be tossed out."

- Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla

Texas may soon require Ten Commandments displays in all public classrooms. The bill would affect over 5 million students across 9,000 schools if Governor Abbott signs it as expected. Legal challenges are already underway, with critics arguing the requirements violate First Amendment protections against state-established religion.

"It's religiously coercive. It's an attempt to indoctrinate [students] into the state's favored form of Christianity."

- Heather Weaver, Senior Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union Program