I have people say in this forum there will be around 10 to 20 people under a manager. How is this effective when it comes to accountability and rewarding the good performers? Would a manager really know what the team members are doing with so many reports? Reducing layers on the top of the chain makes sense but not at the below.
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It’s easy to manage 25+ reports, you just need to remove the administration overhead, OKR’s total waste of time, having 1:1 too frequently with a large number reports will cause bigger overhead for the manager. Intel needs to streamline itself and that includes management overhead.
good point. yes, this shows how brain dead the exercise is.
First, structure the organization to maximize productivity. Efficiency will follow.
Spans and levels would self correct. It is the RESULT of proper organization, not the primary objective.
But instead, when the crisis hits there is no time to look at things carefully so, we can easily cut spending by peanut buttering cuts or just forcing a spans/levels metric.
Also, a dirty little secret from observing large, old, very bureaucratic organizations like Intel... The people on top didn't build the org and if they are honest they will tell you they don't really understand how it actually works together. It has taken on a life of it's own. They are not even competent within the organization to really restructure... so the next best thing is to pick some metric and just make that the forcing function.
Here's the fun part about these actions.
The managers who are efficient, with fewer employees, get punished.
The managers who are less efficient and prone to empire building take over.
If you're a manager, instead of being efficient, you're better off having a large team so you don't get spanned/leveled, as well as some dead wood you can let go with the never-ending layoffs.
lol... yeah people reporting to multiple managers is indictive of a very serious problem.
you can change spans and levels but if you don't fix the process roles and responsibilities the org will still be disfunctional.
reporting to multiple manager demonstrates that multiple groups have are overlap in duty. This creates confusion, slows the entire organization down and so on.
So, just changing the spans and levels without streamlining how work gets done will end in failure. It is a baby step... the real hard work is to organize yourself properly.
The company has been talking about spans and levels for decades.. when will it actually tackle the hard part? taking a hard look at how work gets done and who is doing it.
I'm still confused because I thought lip bu has also mentioned that he wants to see small teams. Maybe he just wants less people assigned to a project... Interested to see what happens ...
Even though my current span is 9, I report to 4 different managers on various projects... There is way too much status updates and unresponsive people. Accountability is the issue, shortening the span will help tremendously, as will clarifying roles and responsibilities. The best time to make this change was yesterday, the second best time would be today...
Easy, dump them all into AI
Intel runs a tight ship. Lots of reports are required like MBOs, status reports, self evaluation reports, factory reports for excursions. If we have more reports, the information in those reports will be vital to succeed. I for one am 100% in support of having more reports.
How will it help? If you double the spans you will cut the number of mangers by roughly 20,000.
Imagine how much more productivity you will get from the workers if they don't have lo listen to their manager bloviating endlessly. Imagine how many fewer Power Point decks will be circulating.
Imagine how much will be saves on the free bananas and coffee.
Managers are supposed to be managing people and not projects. They need to understand the business needs and the skills of their employees. Performance management will actually be better when they are only managing people.
Its to keep a labor pool with a revolving door policy. Burnout is not the issue intel needs at this time and it can be avoided by having a steady attrition. As managers are replaced by AI, they too will not be needed.
If you cannot handle a headcount of 25 people you are not a real manager. Former manager here before Intel.
OP is a Marshmwllow
What do you think the right number is ? I heard it is greater than 10 in Nvidia and they appear to be doing good. Currently there are less than 4 direct reports for many managers. Do you think that is good ?
OP has never been in the Military.
This is sweatshop time, no rewards or promotions.
It's not supposed to make sense it's supposed to empire build. What made you ever think that management was incentivised for success?