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There's an old saying "You can't tear down the master's house with the master's tools". It means never argue with the referee because you can't win a fight against the person who sets the rules. You're the list manager. With this in mind, be aware that my answer below is far more mild than I think you deserve.
Tim said: 3) CORPORATE FOLKS: If you work in large company, can you comment on or make comparison's about how a company with over 6,000 employees and 43,000 students (whatever the corporate comparison might be) is managed at the top level. Would 5, vice presidents (or top level executives) seem excessive?
I say:
Your question is so lopsided that there's almost no point in answering. You've already decided and all you're asking this for is to encourage other people to come up with arguments for why your point of view is superior. I've worked for 3M and Conoco, who had very different structures.
3M has a traditional pyramid structure. The people at the top are very out of touch with those at the bottom. Just last week I tried to convey this to a group I met with. They are basing the performance metric of entire divisions on data being pulled from a system that people have been inadequately trained on. The data being put into the system is wrong a lot of the time. The people putting the information in don't know what all of the options mean. I know because until January I was one of those people. These divisions are basing their headcount justifications on the numbers they get out of this system. People will be hired or fired based on incorrect data. That's frightening.
Conoco had just finished going to a flat structure when I was hired. They had four levels in the entire salaried area. As far as I saw, it worked fine. Supervisors were accessible and employees had a greater degree of freedom (or told me they did) than they had had before. Gone was most of the busy work and endless duplicate documentation and reporting. Their bosses were closer to the action and had a better grip on what was happening. There was no need to tie up their subordinate's time with reports.
There are plenty of corporate examples of companies that work just fine with no upper management at all. While I do think that strong leadership can make a big difference in a company, I think the value of administration is overstated and overpaid.
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