I think an issue was that, in a 25 tier company, “middle management” (i.e. “tier 13?”) is above what one might colloquially refer to as “middle management.”
A 25-depth reporting chain, where each manager only has 2 reports, is 33 million employees. Do these companies have long segments of managing just one person, who then manages one who manages at most a few? I would like a specific example, please.
25 salary grades or titles is pretty common, and gives room for in-place promotions, where you are paid more without changing the reporting structure. And doesn’t really map to the pain described here.
That’s fair, though I do wonder how representative 25-person-deep reporting chains are. I’ve never worked in a company that had a reporting chain > 8 and my dad works in a company with a reporting chain of 12. 25 seems… incredibly painful.
I don’t know what a more representative company size was, mostly just guessing the causal factors leading to Zvi summarizing it as “middle management.”
I think the model requires 2 things:
being promoted far enough into the system that there’s a basic assumption of competency across all dimensions
being surrounded, in both directions, by at least 2 layers of management (separating you from anyone who’s got more direct contact with reality).
The second bit requires 5 levels (level 1 is in direct contact with object-level-workers, level 5 is in contact with the CEO who at least hopefully cares about the bigger picture. But level 3 is steps removed from either). I think it makes sense for this to cause epistemic warping, whether or not it comes with any pathologies relating to competition.
The first bit… probably depends on your industry and culture. My made-up-ass-pull-guess is that you need more like 4 levels of promotion before there’s a plausible assumption that “everyone is competent” (so, combined with #2, companies with around seven layers).
I think an issue was that, in a 25 tier company, “middle management” (i.e. “tier 13?”) is above what one might colloquially refer to as “middle management.”
A 25-depth reporting chain, where each manager only has 2 reports, is 33 million employees. Do these companies have long segments of managing just one person, who then manages one who manages at most a few? I would like a specific example, please.
25 salary grades or titles is pretty common, and gives room for in-place promotions, where you are paid more without changing the reporting structure. And doesn’t really map to the pain described here.
That’s fair, though I do wonder how representative 25-person-deep reporting chains are. I’ve never worked in a company that had a reporting chain > 8 and my dad works in a company with a reporting chain of 12. 25 seems… incredibly painful.
I don’t know what a more representative company size was, mostly just guessing the causal factors leading to Zvi summarizing it as “middle management.”
I think the model requires 2 things:
being promoted far enough into the system that there’s a basic assumption of competency across all dimensions
being surrounded, in both directions, by at least 2 layers of management (separating you from anyone who’s got more direct contact with reality).
The second bit requires 5 levels (level 1 is in direct contact with object-level-workers, level 5 is in contact with the CEO who at least hopefully cares about the bigger picture. But level 3 is steps removed from either). I think it makes sense for this to cause epistemic warping, whether or not it comes with any pathologies relating to competition.
The first bit… probably depends on your industry and culture. My made-up-ass-pull-guess is that you need more like 4 levels of promotion before there’s a plausible assumption that “everyone is competent” (so, combined with #2, companies with around seven layers).