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I have been managing large teams (Anywhere from 100 to 300 people) and in my experience I would phrase it differently. 1. In a going concern, which has found t
by somberi 9y ago
I have been managing large teams (Anywhere from 100 to 300 people) and in my experience I would phrase it differently.
1. In a going concern, which has found traction, a manager is often the _reason_ for people to leave the company.
2. In a company that is not finding traction, or the larger view of its direction is obfuscated, managers are the reason people _stay_ back to work.
This manager being the end-all of association comes from military knowledge that you fight because of allegiance to your battalion, cause and the country - in that order.
In an knowledge enterprise, these constructs exist, but with almost equal weightage.
The best manager cannot make an employee stay back if the company is not going anywhere, or if the cause is not evident.
The worst manager will lose employees even if the company is going bonkers.
- jondubois 9y agoTotally agree. If the company has enough traction and I have a decent shares/options package with a clear exit strategy in sight then I'd stay even if my boss was a wild baboon and my job mostly involved shoveling monkey shit. If you're a manager in a high traction company and you're losing employees regularly, you should seriously consider finding another career.
- xerophyte12932 9y agoYou have been directly managing over a hundred people? That just sounds like textbook bad heirarchy
- cpfohl 9y agoI didn't interpret their comment that way. It's common to have a handful of managers under you, but reference to their reports as your managees as well. That easily reaches 100-200 people.
- jpatokal 9y agoThey did not claim to directly manage 300 people, and it's somewhat bizarre to assume they did.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoI think it's the "large teams" bit that makes the OP appear to be saying the "team" is up to 300 people. Team suggests a group of equally ranked members to me. You can't really have a team of 300, sounds more like a management speak version of team. Of course only the poster knows for sure their intended meaning.
- saiya-jin 9y agoflat hierarchies are amazing in certain type of companies, I had one line manager who had additional 80 devs under him (he was purely line manager, projects were handled by PMs). Much better and healthy org than any other I ever worked for. Especially over-layered corporations, ie banks are pretty horrible place to be. This breeds all kinds of politics, managers play their games to look good to upper management without any good work being done etc. But if this would be some classic department where line+project management blends into 1 hierarchy, this would be too much. Smaller teams, max +-10 people most efficient.
- eldavido 9y agoThis is a really insightful comment. I came here to say I'm the counter-example to the article, in that I left a pretty good manager at a company that was clearly failing. This article feels like one of these things where someone's trying to fit something messy and human into a simple, clean narrative.