This sounds like a great time to be working at Bayer. What's going to happen though is that this will open up an internal power-grab and then whatever structure

This sounds like a great time to be working at Bayer. What's going to happen though is that this will open up an internal power-grab and then whatever structure comes out of that will remain around for a while. That said, my gut tells me there is a good chance that whatever structure it ends up might be more efficient than top-down selection. My experience of top-down selection is absolutely horrible. The outcomes are worse than random. They probably already already did some internal studies to ascertain that teams of professionals could operate autonomously without management... And if they can, it makes sense that managers could only get in the way. You don't need managers if you have the right incentive structure. Most of what managers do is threaten and allocate punishment. Studies have shown that positive reinforcement is more effective at guiding behaviors than negative reinforcement. What kind of positive reinforcement can one get from a manager aside from a worthless pat on the back? Any employees today actually value that? Better cut out the managers and dangle big bonuses in front of the employees directly. The CEO at the top can save all the pats on the back for themselves!