Large-Group Leadership - Gained InSite: philosophical things for normal people

My anecdotal evidence generally seems to support the idea that group sizes will usually plateau at a number lower than 150 participants. This comes from 20 years of doing facilitation both on and offline, running several software companies, and running various forums at America Online. In particular, many online communities provide good evidence fo... See more

Essentially, as we increase group sizes beyond 80, to 150, 200, or even 350-500, we typically do so by breaking larger groups down into smaller ones, and continually reducing community sizes down to the point where they can be understood and managed by people -- and so efficiency reasserts itself.

No matter how many people come over for dinner, you’re only going to be able to engage with a few.

And no matter how big the crowd in the arena, the musicians can only see the faces of a few hundred.

An investor can only be engaged and smart about a very small number of companies.

And it doesn’t matter how many students are in the class, the teacher i

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The chasm that starts somewhere between 9 to 12 people can be especially daunting for a small business. As you grow past 12 or so employees, you must start specializing and having departments and direct reports; however, you are not quite large enough for this to be efficient, and thus much employee time that you put toward management tasks is wast... See more