Hi Reader,
On Tuesday, the Coinbase CEO fired 700 people. Then he posted his playbook on X. His advice to every other CEO: put 15 or more direct reports under each manager.
15 direct reports per manager is where teams break. Every study on this question agrees. He has just advised every CEO in the world to do exactly that.
Here are the numbers. Engagement peaks at around 8 direct reports per manager. Above 15, it drops by a fifth.
Amazon averages 6 to 8 per manager. Google runs 7 to 10. Most large companies sit around 5.
There is a reason the number is small. A manager doing the job properly does four things every day. Tracks who is doing what. Surfaces who is falling behind. Pulls the team back when it drifts. Decides what comes next. Past fifteen people, no human can do most of those. The team starts running on hope.
There is a different answer. Put the first three jobs on a wall. A scoreboard with every person’s effort number, updated through the day, visible to the whole team. The tracking is automatic. Every person sees their own number and everyone else’s. The slow ones either pull up by 2 in the afternoon or they do not. The surfacing is automatic.
That leaves the manager with one job. Decide what comes next. A human can do that for a much larger group than fifteen.
The wall does not stop at the team. The managers have their own wall, with the other managers. Their own effort line. Same daily race. No layer is exempt. Including yours.
Build the wall and the middle layer becomes lighter on its own. You do not have to fire 700 people to find out.
Next Sunday on the YouTube channel. How the wall actually gets built. Six steps. Miss one and the loop breaks.
Don’t set goals. TAME the effort.
BJay
See you next week!
PS – If a friend forwarded this to you, you can subscribe at tameyourgoals.com.
