I'd say, if anything, the point of a lot of structures are to force managers to work for the line workers. Most lean manufacturing books will talk about how ma

I'd say, if anything, the point of a lot of structures are to force managers to work for the line workers. Most lean manufacturing books will talk about how managers have to go investigate problems raised by employees. Having reports means the manager has some level of responsibility to see that their reports can do their job. A "flat" structure just means that the senior employees (and there are senior employees) never have to do their jobs, because they don't have a team that can fail. As for turf wars - they'll still exist. But nothing's as bitter as a turf war where there's no-one with the authority to sort things out.