(Un)Importance of Current Team Size Having as a Benchmark

We all must have come across this subject at one time or another in our life. Those who either have just started their career or are "on the way" to reach at that level, would definitely face this situation. The fun lies on which side of this see-saw you land up.

More often than not any senior management role would have the following phrase as one of the desired skills;

".....should have been handling a team size of .....".

Interesting, isn't it?

I find it interesting from two perspectives, first, they want a person who would have handled a team size of given number and not managed. Second, it is given / assumed that a person who so far not has managed given number is not capable of managing that number.

I personally believe, on both counts the organizations are wrong. The reason being, if an organization fails to differentiate between handle and manage, the probability of it having an effective and satisfactory management is unfavorable. What essentially one needs is a person who can manage the people, because, only if a person is managing only then he / she,

1) would have empathy towards people,

2) would make an effort to understand their aspirations,

3) would be able to understand their competency level and allocate work,

4) would be able to understand their preparedness and mould his working style as per their preparation level,

5) would be able to communicate the importance of task / work to people.....


I mentioned it interesting, because, organizations know the difference and still use those interchangeably. Can it be a reflection of their thought process; may be.

Let's take the second part, the organization assess people as per their current capability. Nothing wrong with it, especially in lateral hires. The fault is not in thinking; as the current capability would provide some information on person's compatibility against listed requirements. Instead, the fault lies in execution.

A role may require a person to manage a team size of 10, 100, 1000 or more people; however, at any given point in time a person cannot directly manage more than 5-7 people effectively. That is, a person would have an operational structure to carry out his / her responsibility, wherein, KRA/KPA of entire population are inter linked, and work towards a common goal. If that were true, whether a perosn has managed 10, 100, 1000 or more people in past is of little relevance, as long as he / she satisfy following constraints;

1) He / She has effectively managed people in past,

2) He / She understands the importance of operational structure,

3) He / she can break down the common goal as per each operational level's work,

4) He / she understands the meaning of governance,

5) He / she has the willingness to work with more and more people,

6) Has he / she been managing, or understand the requirement of managing teams across geographies, and domains,

7) Appreciate the requirement from different social and work cultures, time zones, and languages perspective,

8) Appreciate the difference in managing vendor vs in house teams, and

9) Appreciate the different management requirements for outsource vs in house work.

Though all nine points are important for successful team leading; however, the importance of point #2 and #3 is worth mentioning.

The point #2 suggests that one should understand that one cannot do all the tasks, and not everyone can fit in any given task. That is, importance of skill, capability, work break down, and delegation. If a person knows the importance of these attributes, I believe it would be hard for him / her to miss on goal, unless the person is determined to do so :--))

The point #3 suggests that if one has understood governance as a set of processes, tools, structure, and practices to obtain targeted goals, then he / she has the capability to manage any number of people. I will not provide details on "What is Governance?", as the same has already been covered by me under same topic separately. Instead, I would like to stress on the fact that managing people is part of governance; problem starts when we take governance as a separate process / exercise.

Now, let me end this topic by asking some counter questions on this practice;

1) What is the guarantee that person's handling of people had been effective at current work?

2) Given that a person is capable, had been effective in current work, and has managed more people than required number of people; what is the guarantee that he / she would succeed at new place too?

The reason being, it is very rare that work culture of two organizations being same. It could be somewhat similar; however, there is a lot of difference in being same and similar. So, instead of harping on current team size, try to understand the person's understanding from mentioned points perspective.