I honestly think most orgs would leap forward considerably (with some pain) by doing a severe reduction in middle management, basically making them prove why they are actually providing value, and removing them if they aren't.
Tons and tons of middle managers do absolutely FUCK ALL in terms of delivering product, meeting goals, and serving customers.
I generally dislike middle-management as much as the next IC, but I think these types of arguments tend to ignore latent or low-probability risks.
You see this all the time in discussions about quality or safety metrics. By definition, if those teams are doing a good job you won't see many quality or safety issues, which leads people to believe they are doing "FUCK ALL" and provide little benefit. Only in hindsight, after a low-probability but high risk event happens, does getting rid of them seem like a bad idea.
You’ve never worked in middle management, have you? Just because they do largely ‘soft stuff’, mediating between different departments, teams and layers of the organisation, and (hopefully) running interference so that their team can focus unimpeded on the actual fun part of the job, doesn’t render their contribution null and void.
I’ve dealt with bad upper management, bad project management, bad clients, bad suppliers, but only rarely bad middle management. (And no, I’ve never worked in middle management although at times I’ve been some of the other categories above. :P )
Tons and tons of middle managers do absolutely FUCK ALL in terms of delivering product, meeting goals, and serving customers.