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Jeff Matlow's avatar

5 to 7.

I believe anything above 7 begins to lose its effectiveness

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Mikey Ames's avatar

Because of the inability to meet weekly, or something else?

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Jeff Matlow's avatar

To your point, managing others isn’t about giving them rope to do whatever the employees want and being there when problems happen. It’s about setting goals, making sure the team is on the same page headed in the same direction, guiding the employees, mentoring them, helping them grow. This takes time and focus.

At some point, something’s gotta give. Either you are spending so much time managing the team that you can’t get any of your important work done, or you’re focusing on your important work so can’t spend the time to manage the team.

Effectively managing 7 people takes a ton of time. 10 people? Something is bound to get the short stick.

For those reasons, my personal philosophy is that 7 is the high end of the spectrum.

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