It is time to rethink how we organise work and increase effectiveness. We should have begun these reforms long ago. Now, with artificial intelligence poised to rationalise routine jobs and entire labour-market segments, delay is no longer an option. In the unforgiving decade the surface spectacle is familiar: headlines about headcount cuts, labour shortages, and bureaucratic inertia. The deeper reality is the architecture of how we organise work.
In the closing days of February 2026 the payments company Block announced it was shedding nearly half its workforce. More than 4,000 of over 10,000 staff are leaving because artificial intelligence tools now allow a far smaller team to deliver more. Shares rose more than 20 per cent the same day. X scaled its global platform after an 80 per cent headcount reduction and still functions with roughly 2,840 staff. In 1964 West Germany maintained an authorised strength of roughly 495,000 troops. Today, with a larger economy and a 2026 defence budget exceeding €100 billion, the Bundeswehr fields 186,423 active personnel and still wrestles with readiness. We argue that complex problems are solved by small, independent, empowered teams; routine work should be automated or tightly standardised; and accountability should rest on clear lines of defence rather than endless sign-offs.
The private sector has already run the experiment. Routine administrative layers can be stripped or handed to artificial intelligence without loss of function. In fact the result is gain. Block and X demonstrate the point vividly. That same logic travels directly to defence and government. Academic research has long warned against oversized teams. In the early twentieth century the French engineer Maximilien Ringelmann showed that individual effort declines as group size grows, a phenomenon known as the Ringelmann effect or social loafing. The late Harvard psychologist J. Richard Hackman built on this insight. He found that teams tackling complex tasks perform best when kept small. Beyond around five to seven people, communication overhead and diluted accountability begin to suffocate execution.
Nowhere is the contrast sharper than in military organisation. Israel fields 169,500 active personnel on a 2026 defence budget of roughly $35 billion and operates 348 combat aircraft including 48 F-35s, with brigade-level units that enjoy exceptional decision autonomy. Germany fields 186,423 active personnel organised into eight combat brigades, maintains roughly 140 Eurofighter jets and 313 Leopard 2 tanks, and spends more than three times as much on defence, yet still wrestles with readiness rates that have historically hovered below 50 per cent in key systems. Germany itself is now buying the Arrow 3 missile defence system from Israel, a telling illustration of where leaner structures deliver outsized results. Singapore’s lean, tech-heavy forces and Estonia’s flat, digital-first model reinforce the lesson: agility scales, bureaucracy does not.
The pattern repeats inside government. Travellers across Europe notice it immediately: France and Spain employ significantly more staff on routine administrative tasks than the leaner public sectors of the Nordic countries or the Netherlands. Yet the Nordic countries and the Netherlands experience some of Europe’s most acute labour shortages. This reflects higher productivity per civil servant in leaner systems. A 2025 report from the Productivity Institute highlights how artificial intelligence removes information-intensive bottlenecks in public service delivery chains. This strategy frees human capital for frontline roles in healthcare, education and social work. The United States has already shed roughly 10 per cent of its federal civilian workforce through 2025 efficiency drives. Trump’s critique of “deep state” bloat therefore carries structural merit, even if the rhetoric is partisan, i.e. benefitting his political survival. The same lens applies closer to home.
Europe does not need imported slogans; it needs its own pragmatic redesign. An unelected technocratic European Commission of around 32,800 staff should focus strictly on its core competencies: enforcing single-market rules, competition policy and joint financial institutions. These are exactly the areas where scale and neutrality add value. It has neither the democratic mandate nor the comparative advantage to issue foreign-policy opinions on every global crisis. The Commission should therefore reduce its workforce where possible and become a hyper-efficient, highly automated technocratic hub. Meanwhile Germany, France and the United Kingdom – the three only states with genuine power-projection capacity, industrial base and diplomatic weight – should form a lean foreign-policy and defence core.
The EU should remain the guardian of the single market and shared institutions; strategic calculus belongs to capable national capitals. This is not less Europe but smarter layers – the precise principle that already works in companies, armies and the best-run national administrations. A von der Leyen-style Commission can deliver regulatory coherence; it cannot substitute for sovereign decision speed. That said, this auto acknowledges the political deadlock in Germany, France and the UK, but believes that a top heavy EU Commission only complicates the problem of speed further.
Nations and continents that adopt small empowered teams will move faster on artificial intelligence execution, energy transition, permitting reform and deterrence. Those that cling to layered process will watch rivals pull ahead.
The way forward is clear. Governments serious about thriving should:
- Conduct a ruthless task audit: classify every public role as routine (artificial intelligence or standardise) or complex (small-team ownership). Target at least 40 per cent of administrative effort automated within 24 months.
- Pilot empowered squads of 8–12 multidisciplinary people with full decision rights in high-stakes areas: defence procurement, net-zero permitting, digital services.
- Flatten hierarchies: no more than three management layers for operational work; reserve deeper oversight for genuine strategic risk.
- Mandate artificial intelligence fluency for every civil servant and shift roles from gatekeeper to problem-solver.
- Embed robust lines of defence: real-time outcome dashboards, mandatory sunset reviews, transparent public reporting.
This redesign strengthens accountability rather than weakening it. It is the pragmatic path for Germany, for Europe, and for any serious actor in the unforgiving decade.
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The Friday Thinkers