The Perfect Storm Part 1: The Great Flattening

𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗘𝗢’𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻?

It's tempting to view today's workplace shift in isolation: The Great Flattening—companies eliminating middle layers to cut costs. Quiet Cracking—employees under the strain of eroded trust. And Gen Z—painted as fragile, entitled, and unready. 

These seemingly disconnected phenomena together are the first weather system in what I call the Perfect Storm—a convergence of trends that threatens the long-term competitiveness of large organizations. 

This week, let's look at the first storm system: 

The Great Flattening

You've read about it. On paper, this flattening looks efficient. Cut a layer here, reduce a span of control there, and suddenly, you've trimmed costs, streamlined decision-making, and the board is applauding increased EBITDA. 

But what gets lost in the short-term gains is execution. Leadership pipelines disappear. Institutional knowledge stops transferring. Strategies fail to translate into daily action. Flatten too far, and you remove the connective tissue that holds the organization together. 

In my experience, flattening is often less about agility and more about optics. Private companies flatten when they're preparing to sell. Culture doesn't show up on a balance sheet, so it becomes expendable. 

I've seen companies flatten after their strongest year, not because performance demanded it, but because optics did. The acquiring company buys reputation, but that reputation reflects what the culture used to be, not what it is now. Unless someone invests in rebuilding trust and communicating, the shine wears off quickly, and employees are left carrying the weight of promises that no longer match reality. 

What's left is fewer managers to carry the heavy load with less time to coach teams and new employees, and less bandwidth to communicate processes, expectations, or organizational priorities.

RTO as Passive Flattening

Return-to-office mandates are often framed as "collaboration." But let's be honest: they also function as a passive flattening tool. 

When leaders don't want to announce layoffs, they use RTO to thin the ranks. Employees who can't or don't want to shoulder the commute quietly leave. Others stay but disengage. The effect is the same: fewer people carrying more weight. 

My sister works for a large box retail chain. The new CEO framed a full-time return-to-office mandate as "better collaboration." But here's the reality employees are experiencing.

• Limited office space, forcing teams to scatter across different sites

• Many colleagues remain virtual in other states, making "collaboration" more fragmented

• My sister's commute costs $300 a month and eats 2.5+ hours a day in productivity

Multiply that across hundreds of employees, and the story changes. Collaboration doesn't improve. Productivity slows. Trust erodes, and the supposed savings of flattening evaporate.

The First Line of Defense

Flattening and RTO don't have to backfire, but only if leaders and communicators reframe decisions about the employees' why.

• Rethink what collaboration really means. If teams are still virtual, a commute doesn't buy connection. It just shifts the Zoom call from a comfy chair to a cramped cubicle.

• Redefine the employee WIFM. It isn't perks, it's faster decision-making, mentoring, learning, and genuine creative energy.

• Managers, already stretched thin in a flattened org need support so the office feels additive, not punitive.

And that's where internal communication matters. When structures shrink, communication becomes the connective tissue. Internal communication:

• Equips time-crunched managers with tools to transfer knowledge and connect with their team → execution.

• Delivers real-time employee insights → agility.

• Anchor employees in strategy → competitiveness.

When flattening is paired with intentional, strategic communication, employees may feel stretched, but they feel informed, heard, and included. Without it, they feel expendable.

What's Next if We Don't Act

When employees feel stretched but not supported, they don't just disengage, they break. That's Quiet Cracking, Part 2 of this series.