Once at an Amazon offsite, managers had the reasonable-sounding suggestion that employees should be increasing communication with each other. To their surprise, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos stood up and announced, “No, communication is terrible!”
More communication isn’t necessarily the solution to communication problems — it’s how it is carried out. Compare the interactions at a small dinner — or pizza — party with a larger gathering like a wedding. As group size grows, you simply can’t have as meaningful of a conversation with every person, which is why people start clumping off into smaller clusters to chat.
Trying to find your two-pizza team magic? Here are 3 tips to get you started:
1. What’s the magic number?
Bezos’s two-pizza rule works out to at most 6 or 7 non-ravenous people. Teamwork expert Hackman pegs his magic number at 5 and fervently warns against going above 10. Management expert Bob Sutton cites the U.S. Navy Seals as having learned that 4 “is the optimal size for a combat team.”
Bezos’s two-pizza rule works out to at most 6 or 7 non-ravenous people. Teamwork expert Hackman pegs his magic number at 5 and fervently warns against going above 10. Management expert Bob Sutton cites the U.S. Navy Seals as having learned that 4 “is the optimal size for a combat team.”
It’s safe to say that a small team count sticks to single-digits, so start thinking of splitting into subgroups when you get beyond 10 people.
2. Follow the Cheers rule of effective teams.
Relational loss is a perception — so the more you can do to bring your teammates together, the better your team will be.
Relational loss is a perception — so the more you can do to bring your teammates together, the better your team will be.
With thousands of employees, Zappos puts a lot of thought into scaling the same strong culture, familial atmosphere, and tight-knit feeling that it had when it was much smaller. They even hacked together a “face game” — when you log into the computer system, an employee’s face and bio pop up and you guess the person’s name. The smaller startup,Karma, follows the Cheers rule by eating family-style lunches together every day.
3. Make Teamwork Easier Through Transparency.According to Hackman, one crucial support structure found with effective teams is “an information system that provides teams the data and forecasts members’ need to proactively manager their work.” Every jump in relational links as groups get larger opens the door to more miscommunication and misinformation.
Providing self-service transparency through systems, processes, and tools help distribute information and power so individuals can get aligned and move forward together as a team.
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