Fred,
I enjoyed your comment about span of control. For my dissertation research
back in the 80's I used game theory to suggest optimum group size. Depending
on the parameters, I actually saw that exponential curve! Given the numbers
I was plugging in, the better group size was about ten. But in any case, the
optimum span is relatively small, whether you are talking five or ten. I
think that the more cooperative is the group (i.e., the less it has a boss
who must monitor and sanction, and the more it is a team of "cooperators",
the (only slightly) larger it can be). The findings almost led me to write
an article in the early 90's on "The Benefits of Hierarchy". But I backed
off given the mood against the label. But it is interesting, isn't it. I use
the rule of "Eight is Great", in which better performing groups are about
this size. I also encountered the counter-intuitive outcome that "doping"
helps in achieving cooperation in these groups. Doping in this case is the
presence of members of uneven size. It is easier for "alliances" to form in
this case, and that makes it easier for monitoring and sanctioning tasks to
be "delegated" to the leaders of these alliances". The work also seemed to
counter the idea of very broad spans of control that I hear about in some
management classes and texts these days. That only works if you can get
smaller sub-groups (e.g., like the alliances mentioned above) to take up
delegated tasks.
Cool!
Bye folks!
______________________
Randall W. Kindley The Performance Group
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