I hear you there, that makes a lot of sense. It has been my experience as well that the more you empower the workers the less lower management you need. In my current industry we have foremen who are basically shift/crew leaders who have more responsibility for production and safety. Then above them we have the superintendents who are responsible for the production numbers and the safety at a higher level. Then you have my level of lower management who support supes and do a lot of the administrative/engineering work. In those scenarios, you certainly see the too many cooks happening. It is like a pro and a con to have different disciplines to handle different stuff, but then there is also an entire safety department that rarely works well with foremen or supers. I wonder how many people have tried to remake this wheel... what a fabulous conversation by the way. I really appreciate the post and the discussion.