The RAAF’s frozen middle

Abstract

It is a relatively common trend that solving an organisational strategic issue reveals another. With the implementation of digital technology, came the resistance to change and implementing change agents brought about the awareness of having a safe-to-fail culture. As of late, the awareness is again on middle management with the term “Frozen Middle.” To the short sighted eye, each solution seems to produce another strategic issue to solve. However, these problems have always been present and organisations, such as the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), are simply peeling back the layers of issues to reveal them, like an onion one layer at a time. The “Frozen Middle” is a term used to stereotype the middle management of organisations today (Spreitzer & Quinn, 1996). Typically this is referring to middle managers that are slowing organisational progression due to a lack of motivation or a reluctance to take risks. In this paper, I will break down three potential factors as to why they have developed the stereotype and a possible method to treat the issue.