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 {{quote|'''How many is too many?''' <br>Around five direct reports seems to be the optimum number, according to Mark and Alison, although there are some scenarios where up to nine can work.<br>When it comes to the senior team in a company, however, too many people reporting directly to the owner manager can really hold the business back. Alison recalls working with someone who had 13 people reporting directly to her. “She had to do 13 [[Performance appraisal|appraisals]] at the end of every year!” she says. “It simply wasn’t an effective use of her time.”}}
-To wit: a worldview ''in which the most significant thing you can do is ''manage'', and the most significant part of management is ''[[performance appraisal]]''. The ethos: ''look after the ''form'' and the substance'' will look after itself''. But this is to look after the pounds and hope the pennies take care of themselves. Well, of ''course'' they will: that’s what pennies do: they need no licence from the boss for that. Theory, therefore:
+To wit: a worldview in which ''the most significant thing you can do is manage, and the most significant part of management is [[performance appraisal]]. ''
-Performance comes ''despite'' management, not ''because'' of it.
+The ethos: look after the ''form'' and the substance'' will look after itself''.  Look after the pounds and hope the pennies take care of themselves.
+But of ''course'' they will: that’s what pennies do: they need no licence from the boss for that. Theory, therefore: performance comes ''despite'' management, not ''because'' of it.
 ===What you see is all there is===
-Management focuses on reporting lines — [[formal]] organisational structure — because that is what it ''sees''. Reporting lines are “[[legible]]”. Measurable. [[Audit|Auditable]]. You can count and optimise spans and layers. In this way, those at the top conveniently may credit business success to the formal structure they preside over.
+Management focuses on its [[formal]] structure, made flesh in reporting lines, because ''that is what it sees''. Reporting lines are “[[legible]]”. Measurable. [[Audit|Auditable]]. You can count and optimise spans and layers.
+But reporting lines are the most sclerotic, rusty and ''resented'' communication channels in the organisation. They are the “keep off the grass” signs; vain attempts to coerce inferior modes of communication over better ones, for if they really were the best lines of communication, you wouldn’t ''need'' to formalise them.  They would just ''happen''.
+But they don’t.
+[[Line manager]]<nowiki/>s are, by their own management, ''exhorted'' to have weekly meetings with directs; ''obliged'' to populate standing agendas; ''made'' to produce [[Management information and statistics|MIS]].
+Why? ''Because they wouldn’t do it otherwise and no-one would miss it''.
+Communications up and down the chain of command do not advance the [[commercial imperative]], but ''react'' to it. They are validations of things the report already knows; reluctant, strained, for-the-sake-of-it FYIs; updates and postings serving only to spare the manager’s blushes should she be blind-sided by someone else.  Vertical communications fulfil formal, not substantive, requirements for order.
-But reporting lines are the most sclerotic, rusty and ''resented'' communication channels in the organisation. They are the “keep off the grass” signs; vain attempts to coerce inferior modes of communication at the expense of better ones, for if they really were the best lines of communication, you wouldn’t ''need'' to formalise.  They would just ''happen''.
+The firm’s real business is done only when its gears are engaged, and that means its on-the-ground personnel communicate with those who are ''not'' in their immediate hierarchy. The business unit is a gear: what matters is what happens ''when it is engaged''.
-Communications up and down the chain of command — reluctant, strained, for the sake of it, to fulfil formal, not substantive, requirements for order — are ''reactive'' to [[Commercial imperative|commercial imperatives]]: the firm’s real business is done only when its gears are engaged, and that means its personnel communicate with those who are ''not'' in their immediate hierarchy. The business unit is a cog: what matters is what happens ''when it is engaged''.
+But as the complicatedness of our organisations has grown we have developed more and more internal “engines” that engage not with the outside world, but with each other, generating their own heat, noise and movement — frictions and vibrations which wear out parts and fatigue the machinery — and which are lost as [[Entropy|entropic]] energy.
-But as the complicatedness of our organisations has grown we have developed more and more internal “engines” that engage not with the outside world, but with each other, generating their own heat, noise and movement — frictions and vibrations which wear out parts and fatigue the machinery — and which are lost as [[Entropy|entropic]] energy. Of course, of course: one must have [[legal]], [[compliance]] and [[internal audit]], but when those departments have their own operational infrastructure and are themselves monitored and audited, the drift from optimal efficiency is plain. [[Internal audit]] must periodically audit ''itself''. But who audits ''that'' function? [[Elephants and turtles|Turtles]] ahoy: we approach an infinite regression.
+Of course, of course: one must have [[legal]], [[compliance]] and [[internal audit]], but when those departments have their own operational infrastructure and are themselves monitored and audited, the drift from optimal efficiency is plain. [[Internal audit]] must periodically audit ''itself''. But who audits ''that'' function? [[Elephants and turtles|Turtles]] ahoy: we approach an infinite regression.
 ===The map and the territory===