This is just an idea that I have been playing around with. A new way for companies to organize their teams of workers.
Imagine you have a team of 12 workers, and a manager overseeing their work. He set's deadlines, organizes meetings. He hires people and MAYBE he fires people from his team. Pretty normal stuff, but by some mechanism of outside force (company culture, higher-ups enforcing this paradigm via reviewing his decisions) He is not the GodHead of that team, he simply has a role on that team. His role is to organize the environment for that team to do the best job possible.
Sometimes this means firing misbehaving, lazy, incompetent members, I guess, but it also means procuring resources for the team, fencing emails and other distractions all day, and fetching coffee for the team (Assuming the team member doesn't want to stretch his legs himself). He cleans up after other people who need to get onto the next important task. This role might have more responsibility than a secretary; needing to demand the team operate in certain ways (such as task-management protocols, like AGILE or whatever) and, as I said, making hiring decisions.
Heck, I can imagine this “Manager” role being completely separated from the “Boss” role: The boss is there to direct the work because he is an experienced expert, but he also shouldn't be doing things that take away from his actual work.
I see this working on construction sites, too: A boss is there directing the work, telling who to put up what structure, go grab that pallet. He might be overseeing 3 or 4 teams. But he also hires a manager for his teams, who is there to make sure that the materials are where they are meant to be, the guy working on the roof has a resupply of nails, and a cold bottle of water, the boss is up to date with the progress. If a guy gets sick, he takes over for him that day. Basically, he is watching out for what would cause the team to perform less well and then rectifies it.
The first critique that jumps into my mind is “companies would never allow it to happen”, but I dismissed that from my own thoughts. There is always a fresh new company looking for ways to usurp the Kings with their dynamic new tactics. If this method doesn't inherently cripple a company, this paradigm could be bought along, even if it had nothing to do with the success.
That is all. Let's discuss!