To begin with, the people who make and influence strategic decisions at companies--executives, boards, and major investors--are just as susceptible to fads as a

To begin with, the people who make and influence strategic decisions at companies--executives, boards, and major investors--are just as susceptible to fads as anybody else. The difference is that the fads they get into have massive impacts on people's lives. You rarely get fired for making a bad decisions everyone else is making at the same time. We see this in professional sports where playcallers will make decisions that are conventional but demonstrably suboptimal. There are a lot of managers who are force multipliers for their teams. There are a lot that do crucial glue work but aren't gamechangers. There are a lot who are mediocre. There are some that are counterproductive. It is very difficult to tell the difference between these. Even if you have lots of time, it is hard to isolate the work of the manager from the circumstances they're in. One way to find out is to get rid of the managers and see which initiatives suffer. I'm guessing we'll see the number of managers gradually converge to whatever the long-term average, unless the nature of white collar work has changed. On case-by-case bases, teams that are hamstrung by insufficient management will demand more management. They'll get it, especially if they are doing critical work. Other teams will regain management due to the desire for consistency.