📅 Thought for today:
‘Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationship of the men and women in the organization.’
— Harold S Geneen
#thoughtfortoday #organisation #orgchart #hierarchy #written #real #relationships
A CEO client consults on organisation charts.
During our discussion, I reflect on working with Railtrack in the early 2000s (I think). They had an org chart than included four levels of solo managers reporting up in a chain.
Management theory and team theory overlap here, a good manager can manage 6-8 people directly. An effective team will have 6-8 people.
Does that sound too small?
Well, if you have four layers of management, the theoretical maximum size of an organisation is about 5,700 people.
You don’t need a lot of layers, you need effective managers.
And most companies have very varied managerial competence.
