Was ousted Volkswagen Group chairman Herbert Diess a victim of the frozen middle? The suspicion that the Tesla-admiring Diess was given the push from VW because he failed to convince change-resistant junior managers – the so-called frozen middle in business terminology – is hard to ignore.
Volkswagen is a difficult ship to steer at the best of times, and Diess was in charge of overseeing the biggest structural change to the company since it rebuilt following its industrial involvement in the Second World War.
He was hired from BMW in 2015 as Volkswagen brand chief and made overall group chairman in 2018.
