Leadership Turn

The optimal size of a team

by Michelle on March 28th, 2006

 ”If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, the size of the team is too large.”
–Jeff Bezos, chairman, CEO, and founder, Amazon.com

This quote comes from Fast Blog.  As you can see its generated a few comments about lean and too mean vs the inefficiencies of committees rather than teams.

Kevin Eikenberry had this to say

There are merits for and against small and large teams.  I think a size debate kind of misses the point.  Every gal knows its not just about size, its what you can do with it :)

I would contend when you are setting up a team, the size is not so important if everyone has clear and delineated responsibilities and is accountable for these responsibilities.  It is a truely the leaders job to pull the team together and ensure this is the ase no matter what the size.

Via Kevin Eikenberry

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POSTED IN: Group Dynamics, Leadership Skills