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Every year Gallup measures how many people report to a single manager across the American workforce. The number jumped from 11 to 12 in a single year, the fastest move in the decade they have been tracking it. The driver can be heard on every restructuring call: companies are cutting middle management roles and distributing the remaining employees across fewer remaining managers. Gallup's own data says engagement peaks when a manager has eight or nine direct reports. Because that is roughly the number where a person can still give real feedback and know what their people are actually working on. Past fifteen it falls off a cliff. The question that matters most today is not how many names sit under a given title on an org chart but what percentage of each person's week goes to the work that requires their judgment vs the work that just keeps the operation running. The companies that are pulling ahead are the ones that moved the routine work out of the human week entirely, so the people still in the room are spending their hours on customers, on the calls only a person can make and on the thinking the business actually competes on. How we help: https://t.co/qdJhEaQEE8