What the research says

What do middle managers actually do during change?

The short answer

They translate. In the studies we mapped, middle managers turn leaders' ideas into everyday work, negotiate what vague mandates mean, recast the case for a change in terms senior leaders accept, and, with senior managers, build shared understanding in informal conversations around formal meetings. In one court-house modernisation, how they did it made a difference to whether ideas became everyday work.

Based on 10 studies from the Atlas of the Middle: 0 rated high strength, 6 medium, 4 low. Designs: qualitative case (10).

Turning ideas into everyday work

The same idea can be translated in very different ways, with different results.

Agostino et al. (2013) · qualitative case · MediumLeading change in public organisations: the role of mediatorsIn an Italian court house modernisation, middle-manager 'mediators' translated leaders' ideas in three distinct ways, and the approaches differed in how well they turned those ideas into everyday work.Arnaud et al. (2016) · qualitative case · LowMaterializing Strategy in Mundane Tools: the Key to Coupling Global Strategy and Local Strategy Practice?In one bank branch, a middle manager turned head-office strategy into simple local tools, engaging frontline staff and hitting the targets senior leaders wanted.Kryger (2017) · qualitative case · LowStrategy development through interview technique from narrative therapyA purchasing department wrote its own strategy by telling stories about work, and the director signed off on it.

Negotiating what a change means

When mandates are ambiguous, middle managers work out, and sometimes reshape, what they mean.

Alfoldi et al. (2017) · qualitative case · MediumFirm Bosses or Helpful Neighbours? The Ambiguity and Co‐Construction of MNE Regional Management MandatesAt Unilever, regional mandates given to subsidiaries proved ambiguous; several units negotiated what they meant and reshaped their scope over time, with boundary-spanning middle managers doing the most intense sensemaking.Teulier & Rouleau (2013) · qualitative case · LowMiddle Managers' Sensemaking and Interorganizational Change Initiation: Translation Spaces and Editing PracticesMiddle managers from five large French public works firms, meeting as a cross-company study group, made sense of a shared digital design model set to reshape their sector by translating and reworking ideas together.Lüscher & Lewis (2008) · qualitative case · MediumOrganizational Change and Managerial Sensemaking: Working Through ParadoxAt Lego, middle managers charged with carrying out a major restructuring struggled for meaning; reflecting jointly with researchers brought their dilemmas into view as paradoxes, and the authors set out a process for working through them.

Shaping how leaders see it

Influence runs upward too: middle managers steer how their own bosses understand a change.

Hope (2010) · qualitative case · MediumThe Politics of Middle Management Sensemaking and SensegivingIn an insurance company's change effort, middle managers used their business expertise and political moves to steer how even their bosses understood the change.Eggers (2016) · qualitative case · MediumReversing course: Competing technologies, mistakes, and renewal in flat panel displaysAfter IBM's plasma display bet failed, middle-level champions recast the case for LCDs in business terms for senior managers, and IBM went on to lead LCDs.

Words, settings and side conversations

Some of this work happens in informal conversations around formal meetings, and in choosing the right words for the right setting.

Hoon (2007) · qualitative case · MediumCommittees as strategic practice: The role of strategic conversation in a public administrationIn a public administration rolling out staff development, middle and senior managers shaped strategy not just in formal committee meetings but in informal conversations around them, where they built shared understanding, aligned on issues and pre-arranged support.Rouleau & Balogun (2011) · qualitative case · LowMiddle Managers, Strategic Sensemaking, and Discursive CompetenceDrawing on field vignettes, the authors show middle managers moved strategic change by pairing the right words with the right setting, using familiar verbal, symbolic and cultural cues to pull in people from other levels.

What I take from it

If middle managers are the ones who translate a change into Tuesday morning, I would give them the time and the room to do it with their teams before the change is announced as done.

This is my reading, Gabriel Lopez's, not a finding of the studies above.

Common questions

What is middle-manager sensemaking?

It is the work of figuring out what a change means for daily work, alone and with others. At Unilever, boundary-spanning middle managers did the most intense sensemaking as units negotiated what ambiguous regional mandates meant.

Can middle managers influence senior leaders during change?

Yes, in at least two studies. In an insurance company's change effort, middle managers used their business expertise and political moves to steer how even their bosses understood the change.

Every summary on this page was written by Unfrozen from the study's abstract or full text and checked twice by independent reviewers. Loop coding is exploratory and AI-assisted, pending human verification. Spot an error? Email info@unfreeze.us and it gets fixed.