What: McKinsey addresses the notion of organisation complexity through the angle of the maximum span of control, and identifies archetypes to do so.

Why it is important: Instead of using industry norms or other KPIs to make decisions that could become counterproductive, this approach allows to draw a flexible organisation adapted to the tasks to be performed.

Throughout the 20th century, McKinsey has found that there is no single magic number that fits all types of managers and the work that they do, when it comes to the maximum number of people they can manage (Span of Control). Chasing such an idea could actually be counterproductive. They also do not believe that there are industry norms, or corporate size, and propose instead to use managerial archetypes to evaluate the maximum SOC for each of them:

• “Player / Coach”: three to five direct reports (e.g.: Functional vice president)
• “Coach”: six to seven direct reports (e.g.: customer-analytics  manager in a marketing group)
• “Supervisor”: eight to ten reports (e.g.: Senior vice president of finance)
• “Facilitator”: eleven to fifteen direct reports (e.g. accounts receivables and payables managers in a large finance organisation)
• “Coordinator”: fifteen or more (e.g. manager in a call centre).

How to identify the right spans of control for your organisation