There’s an optimal number for every group, evolutionary psychologists argue in a new book
There’s a Goldilocks number for every group, one of many insights of evolutionary psychology that can help managers to build successful teams. Picture: 123RF
Most people maintain a close personal network of about 150 “friends and family”. These are the people that they see on a regular basis and would go out of their way to help. Outside that magic number the ties are much looser and the sense of obligation less telling. If you want to make complex decisions, then 12 to 15 is a better size, since it provides more perspectives. Work groups can contain six to 12 people, provided that each person knows his or her role and the agenda is clear. Fifty is a good number for an information-sharing meeting if you have a clear leader and a fixed agenda. Fifty is also the maximum number at which it is possible to run a “community of practice” along simple democratic lines without a formal management system in place.
The danger is that companies will be so focused on economies of scale that they lazily add more managers without recognising the costs this exacts in bureaucratisation, alienation and freeriding. Faces disappear into the crowd. Meetings multiply and metastasise. People become functions . “We” becomes “us” and “them”. Modish practices such as hot-desking only add to the sense of alienation and impersonality.
Our authors are rather too keen on repeating the same points over and over rather than exploring possible objections. The human scale imposes costs as well as benefits. Anthony Trollope wrote immortal novels about the feuds that split asunder the small clerical world of Barchester. Oxbridge colleges are notorious for the internecine quarrels which can have big-brained intellectuals behaving like squabbling children.
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