The same thing happened at McDonald's many years ago. You had 2 kinds of people in the building: 1 manager and 38 teenagers. We had to figure out how to get things done with or without the manager. The more knowledgeable (senior) employees gradually became de-facto supervisors. Eventually, the company gave them the title "swing manager" and a little raise for the job they were already doing.
I suspect Joel's new middle managers were already well positioned for their new jobs, probably doing them already. The recognition and extra $ are always a nice touch.
(Any resemblence between the way McDonald's is run today and when I was a teenager is purely coincidental.)
Welcome to magazine publishing. If the magazine comes out in August and gets an August date, come Septermber 1st no one buys it because it's an old issue. At least, that's what the publishers think.
The explanation I always heard was that the date was the pull date. So NewsWeek was always dated as the day the next issue would come out. For monthly magazines, it's the month that the next issue will come out in.
The Scrum master's job is to remove obstacles from the team's path. There's no telling people what to do, just listening to them at regular team meeting and helping solve what ever problems they come up with.
The scrum master does not have to be a manager just a "person with influence".
So maybe Joel & Co. can implement regular team meeting where "people with influence" listen to complaints and then try to solve them. And solving problems may require nothing more then being comfortable chatting with Joel.
I suspect Joel's new middle managers were already well positioned for their new jobs, probably doing them already. The recognition and extra $ are always a nice touch.
(Any resemblence between the way McDonald's is run today and when I was a teenager is purely coincidental.)