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> To keep hierarchies flat, Mr Brin and Mr Page briefly went so far as to abolish managers altogether, though the experiment had to be dialled back. A compromis

> To keep hierarchies flat, Mr Brin and Mr Page briefly went so far as to abolish managers altogether, though the experiment had to be dialled back. A compromise was to give managers a minimum of seven direct reports to limit the time they have to loom over each underling. In my experience, so many direct reports changes a manager’s job from “managing people” to “facilitating people”. It’s the same for engineers and laborers, scientists and shit-scrapers. There is time enough to defend your team from HR terrorism, advocate for your team’s technical perspective, and fight for resources - and that’s it. Except at the big-big overly-titanic conglomerates, who trade behemoth economy of scale for total dysfunction, so as to barely break even. IE, Google’s future.

BeetleB 6y ago
In my experience, when a manager has a lot of reports, it usually ends up with team members playing all kinds of pathological controlling behavior (e.g mild to not-so-mild bullying). Conflicts arise, and team members who are the loudest usually win. The manager simply is too stretched to understand enough to manage these situations. He will usually cede to the people who he thinks are the "experts" in the team. Essentially, you now have unofficial managers in the team. It's no longer de facto a flat hierarchy. And worse, there is little to no accountability. People will try to "seize power" and carve out their niche. This is usually not intentional on the part of said people, but I think it is more or less the "natural" dynamic that arises. I'm sure there are exceptions. Having a manager who can assert authority and make decisions in conflict situations is great. He/she shouldn't do it often (i.e. micromanage), but a manager who has lots of reports (e.g. > 10) rarely makes good decisions in such situations.
- freedomben 6y ago
  I tend to agree. Philosophically I really, really wanted to do away with managers but after working in a company that basically did that, it was the loud and forceful personalities that became the de facto bosses/decision makers. It created several monsters that I could not wait to get away from. Having good managers is my goal now rather than having little to no managers.
  - quercusa 6y ago
    Bad/weak/over-stretched managers make the best case for good managers!
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Military hierarchy has been pretty similar for a very long time because it works conceptually. Section/Squad/Platoon/Company/Battalion/etc. 10 direct reports don’t work from a management sense unless some folks are expected to operate very independently or if the reports themselves are second level managers, or the manager is only nominally “managing” a time card or whatever. Management to me means you are accountable for output. I can’t be aware enough of what 10 different people/teams are doing to be meaningfully accountable for a longer period of time. It’s not fair to me and certainly not fair to the people not getting the support they need. In my professional life, I’m responsible for a team of ~200, with 5 direct reports. It’s a mix of engineering and product/service teams. We aim for teams of 4-5 with two functions each. The secret is to be as honest as you can, have high standards, and be flexible.
  - MetalGuru 6y ago
    Can you elaborate on what you mean by the last sentence? Sounds interesting
kanox 6y ago
> A compromise was to give managers a minimum of seven direct reports This might be dumb but what is the industry standard here? I mostly see teams of up to 5 people under "tech lead" who spends >50% coding and maybe ~20 people under a "manager" who spends almost no time coding. Maybe what this policy means is >= 7 people under a lead? Because 7 people per manager does not sound very flat.
- lumost 6y ago
  Coding time will start nose diving at 2 direct reports. Providing proper support to 4-5 direct reports will effectively drop coding time below 25%, at which point you might as well go to 0% for the impact 25% coding time will provide. There are exceptions to the above depending on how independent the team is, or how stringent the deadlines are.
donavanm 6y ago
There's a ton of organizational and management study around teh number of direct reports. Seven is certainly not an accident. As I recall most IT work has an effective range of 5-10, with optimal outcomes around 6-7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control

BeetleB 6y ago

In my experience, when a manager has a lot of reports, it usually ends up with team members playing all kinds of pathological controlling behavior (e.g mild to not-so-mild bullying). Conflicts arise, and team members who are the loudest usually win. The manager simply is too stretched to understand enough to manage these situations. He will usually cede to the people who he thinks are the "experts" in the team. Essentially, you now have unofficial managers in the team. It's no longer de facto a flat hierarchy. And worse, there is little to no accountability. People will try to "seize power" and carve out their niche. This is usually not intentional on the part of said people, but I think it is more or less the "natural" dynamic that arises. I'm sure there are exceptions. Having a manager who can assert authority and make decisions in conflict situations is great. He/she shouldn't do it often (i.e. micromanage), but a manager who has lots of reports (e.g. > 10) rarely makes good decisions in such situations.

freedomben 6y ago
I tend to agree. Philosophically I really, really wanted to do away with managers but after working in a company that basically did that, it was the loud and forceful personalities that became the de facto bosses/decision makers. It created several monsters that I could not wait to get away from. Having good managers is my goal now rather than having little to no managers.
- quercusa 6y ago
  Bad/weak/over-stretched managers make the best case for good managers!
Spooky23 6y ago
Military hierarchy has been pretty similar for a very long time because it works conceptually. Section/Squad/Platoon/Company/Battalion/etc. 10 direct reports don’t work from a management sense unless some folks are expected to operate very independently or if the reports themselves are second level managers, or the manager is only nominally “managing” a time card or whatever. Management to me means you are accountable for output. I can’t be aware enough of what 10 different people/teams are doing to be meaningfully accountable for a longer period of time. It’s not fair to me and certainly not fair to the people not getting the support they need. In my professional life, I’m responsible for a team of ~200, with 5 direct reports. It’s a mix of engineering and product/service teams. We aim for teams of 4-5 with two functions each. The secret is to be as honest as you can, have high standards, and be flexible.
- MetalGuru 6y ago
  Can you elaborate on what you mean by the last sentence? Sounds interesting

kanox 6y ago

> A compromise was to give managers a minimum of seven direct reports This might be dumb but what is the industry standard here? I mostly see teams of up to 5 people under "tech lead" who spends >50% coding and maybe ~20 people under a "manager" who spends almost no time coding. Maybe what this policy means is >= 7 people under a lead? Because 7 people per manager does not sound very flat.

lumost 6y ago
Coding time will start nose diving at 2 direct reports. Providing proper support to 4-5 direct reports will effectively drop coding time below 25%, at which point you might as well go to 0% for the impact 25% coding time will provide. There are exceptions to the above depending on how independent the team is, or how stringent the deadlines are.

donavanm 6y ago

There's a ton of organizational and management study around teh number of direct reports. Seven is certainly not an accident. As I recall most IT work has an effective range of 5-10, with optimal outcomes around 6-7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control