Then, as we thought, it's all about him being bored and needing something to do so he isn't at home all day with his wife. "Chat with me randomly as I have ideas" guy isn't actually as valuable to the company as many of the other employees . . . but I'm sure he thinks he's really valuable. Nice guy or not, he was a meme that I despised when I was in industry.
Sound like everyone else in the group is happier and healthier at home, and the work still gets done well . . . better and more efficiently than ever, in fact, without all of his aimless meetings and added chit chat. He probably described himself as a "global thinker."
People don't leave companies, they leave incompetent managers.
This last line and the rest of your story is exactly what our coo is like who happens to head my division. Before we forced people back to office there were town Halls and people asked why was performance down etc. And he said no.
His reason. Not enough net new ideas were crossing his doorstep. People werent just dropping by to talk and ask questions.
Oh wait you failed at your job remotely so we have to go back. Maybe these middle management jobs aren't as necessary as we thought. Including the coo who can't do his job
People don't go into management to manage people in any way that can be measured, they go into it to have small but continual sensations of power.
Remote work doesn't give the same sensation of power, so it's unfulfilling for managers.
The solution is to keep people in a position where they can feel a sense of power/fulfillment regularly, i.e. working face-to-face.
Likewise, subordinates grock this dynamic and want to work remote so they aren't continually subordinated.
I don't think there's any great mystery here, it's just a matter of who gets to feel power on a daily basis.
Yeah, there are a ton of mediocre, ego driven managers out there, but that's just part of running a business.
I've never worked with an executive or business owner who isn't fully aware that middle management is kind of a wasteland of egos and bullshit, so the smart ones know they have to implement systems and structures to mitigate that.
But at the end of the day, middle management is almost always a talent bottle neck. It's the role that's the hardest to maintain good people because it's a shit role. There's huge responsibility and no real power or autonomy, so anyone who's actually really good at it is likely to move up and out as quickly as possible, often to another company.
So yeah, a lot of low/middle managers suck, but it has to be accounted for within the corporate design.