Wall Street Journal 2026-04-02-2
How Working in America Became So Joyless
The biggest risk in enterprise AI isn't technical failure: it's deploying into a morale vacuum. Companies are cutting perks, stretching managers to 12 direct reports, and pushing AI adoption simultaneously, creating a workforce too anxious to adopt the tools being deployed. The data point that matters isn't the espresso machine; it's Gallup's 50% jump in manager span-of-control since 2013, which signals organizational thinning has outpaced management design. Winners won't deploy AI fastest; they'll deploy it without destroying the human infrastructure that makes adoption possible.