Subtitle: : How to Abolish Line Managers, Common Sense, and 400 Years of Organizational Learning

Are you tired of clarity, accountability, and anything resembling structure? Well, good news! A bold new anti-management philosophy is sweeping certain workplaces like a plague of willful ignorance. Why bother with “line managers” unless you're herding a small nation? Who needs defined roles when you can achieve peak inefficiency by ensuring no one really knows who’s in charge of what?

In this tongue-in-cheek exposé, Bert Fabry takes a satirical scalpel to the latest genius idea to hit the modern organization: the Deliberately Undefined Management Model™. You’ll hear about the brave new world where vague authority reigns, middle management is vaporized, and leadership is replaced by performative consensus and chaos masquerading as agility.

But wait—there’s more! This brave philosophy doesn’t stop at dismantling the concept of a line manager. No, it dares to challenge centuries of corporate governance. Why separate ownership and execution, a principle dating back to the Dutch East India Company? Let’s go full pre-capitalist feudalism: give the king back his scepter and the quarterly targets.

With a straight face and a healthy dose of irony, this talk celebrates the death of coherent leadership and invites you to marvel at the brilliance of those who believe that the less defined an organization is, the more agile it becomes.

Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.

By the end of this journey through managerial absurdity, we’ll circle back to the basics—why real leadership, clear roles, and thoughtful structure still matter. Because while it’s fun to laugh at the idiocy, someone’s got to do the work. And someone probably still has to be the boss.