Now, just as an honest corporate peon, maybe even an optimistic one: If I didn't have a manager I'd totally absolutely get nothing done, at all, ever, besides writing and hubski and reddit and every single interesting thing you can think to look up on Wikipedia and then all the summations of all the basic plots and then every single short story of any note you can read free online and then all the interesting lit journals and then their archives and oh did I mention yet I once read the entirety of HPMOOR on work time at a shitty job? In like maybe a month? And did I mention all those pictures of cats? It would be so great, not having a manager. And then it would be boring and then it would be terrible. And then, maybe then, I'd give you more than half-invested work. So no. Don't get rid of the managers. Someone needs to manage me.