自上世纪30年代以来，商业研究人员一直认为，CEO手下管理约七至十名员工最为理想。不过，这个人数在许多公司都已经有了大幅度的上升，而且，学者和咨询人员也在重新审视他们在团队最大规模这个问题上的观点。
上世纪80年代末、90年代初，为每个CEO分配更多员工的做法开始在公司重组潮流中流行开来，当时更加扁平化的组织结构也立稳了脚跟。眼下，一些咨询人员正在敦促公司在管理问题上采取更加宽松的态度，这样公司就可以削减CEO的数量了。在欧洲进行的研究表明，一名管理者可以管理30名甚至更多的员工，部分原因在于科技在沟通交流以及监督管理中发挥了积极作用。
马萨诸塞州坎布里奇的领导力教练迈克尔•汉默(Michael Hammer)说，“如果你纠缠在审核、控制和干预这些管理者过去重视的领域里，那么管理12个直接下属都需要费好大劲。你需要改变管理者的定义。”
汉默是上世纪90年代那场重组运动的支持者，也因此备受争议。他还是1993年畅销书《企业再造》(Reengineering the Corporation)的作者之一。现在，他赞成给予一线工人更多责任的观点。而CEO可以通过培训和为众多下属提供支持的方式来发挥影响力。汉默表示，结果是，“你不再需要那么多CEO。”
汉默以百事公司(PepsiCo Inc.)在墨西哥的Gemesa饼干业务为例。那里的工人们被简要告知公司目标和工作流程，以便他们发挥主观能动性，保证生产顺利进行。新的薪酬体系对高效、高质量、服务和团队精神予以奖励，而对表现欠佳的员工给予惩罚。百事公司表示，这种做法提高了效率，而管理者的角色更像是在自我激励的团队中充当教练。
广告百事公司表示，去年，Gemesa每个CEO手下管理着56名员工，而并非上世纪90年代中期流行的1:12的CEO员工比例。该公司还补充说，这些变化帮助Gemesa提高了业绩。
丹麦奥胡斯商学院(Aarhus School of Business)的副教授瓦莱丽•史密兹(Valerie Smeets)和弗雷德里克•沃兹斯基(Frederic Warzynski)最近对斯堪的纳维亚半岛一家大型企业的管理安排进行了调查分析。他们发表在《劳动经济学》(Labour Economics)上的研究成果显示，CEO管理更多员工的能力正在日益增强。
在这家未指明的高科技制造企业，CEO管理的员工人数从1997年的平均24.4人增加到2004年的30人。
研究人员对管理者“控制幅度”──指每位管理者能有效监督的员工人数──的拓展给出了几种可能的解释。沟通技术的提高或许“有助于管理者更加充份地利用他们的知识，解决更多问题，并监管更大规模的团队。”
他们还发现，控制幅度大的管理者通常会获得更多薪酬，并被提拔管理更大规模的队伍。这会促使有雄心壮志的管理者寻求拓展控制幅度的途径。
工作环境的多种多样意味着对于一个CEO能够管理多少下属并没有放之四海皆准的标杆。工厂或呼叫中心的管理者或许能够应付相对庞大的队伍，因为这些工作性质类似，可以分组给员工下达指令。不过，如果属下的职责有很大差别，那么CEO或许会更快地达到工作极限。比如，对财务、业务、销售、研发等部门经理进行监督的首席执行长就必须将时间花在费时费神、一对一的问题上面。
并非所有公司都乐于将更多下属交由一名CEO管理。Sun电子计算机公司(Sun Microsystems Inc.)旗下Open Work Services集团副总裁安•贝姆斯伯格(Ann Bamesberger)表示，Sun更青睐由10个甚至更少人组成的工作团队。
贝姆斯伯格表示，Sun最近将更多精力投入到工作环境的重新设计上面，目的是使团队规模能够随着项目的进展而更为自如的扩充或者收缩。他们的措施包括：对有时在家工作的工程师给予更好的支持；更加灵活的办公室座位安排，这样做是为了让人手日渐增加的团队能够在吸纳新人的同时又能保证员工间的距离较近。
向辛迪•左林格(Cindy Zollinger)直接汇报工作的员工有24名以上。她是诉讼咨询公司Cornerstone Research的总裁。
左林格说，“我并不是以通常的方式来管理他们。他们在很大程度上是自我管理。我帮助他们解决面对的困难，或者是最大限度的帮助他们抓住机会。”
Cornerstone在法庭审判中提供司法鉴定。左林格表示，他们的管理人员和项目经理对如何处理每一个项目有足够清醒的头脑，因此她不必事必躬亲。
她说，“我们确实也召开执行委员会会议，面对面地讨论重大政策问题。不过大多数日常工作都可以通过电子邮件处理，这节约了很多时间。”
Overseeing More Employees — With Fewer Managers
Since the 1930s, business researchers have maintained that bosses optimally should manage about seven to 10 people. But many companies have boosted that average substantially — and scholars and consultants are reconsidering their views of maximum team size.
Assigning more workers to each boss started catching on during the corporate restructuring pushes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when flatter organizational models took hold. Now some consultants are urging companies to loosen their views of supervising, so organizations can run with fewer bosses. Research in Europe suggests that a manager can oversee 30 or more employees, in part by using technology to communicate and help monitor work.
’If you’re stuck with the traditional emphasis on checking, controlling and intervening, it takes real heroics to push as far as 12 direct reports,’ says Michael Hammer, a leadership coach in Cambridge, Mass. ’You need to change what it means to be a manager.’
Mr. Hammer was a controversial advocate of restructuring initiatives in the 1990s and co-author of the 1993 bestseller ’Reengineering the Corporation.’ He now favors giving front-line workers more responsibility. Bosses then exercise influence by training and supporting larger numbers of subordinates. As a result, he says, ’You need fewer bosses.’
Mr. Hammer cites PepsiCo Inc.’s Gemesa cookie business in Mexico as a case in point. There, workers have been briefed on company goals and processes so that they do more themselves to keep production running smoothly. New pay systems reward productivity, quality, service and teamwork while penalizing underperformance. That promotes efficiency, PepsiCo says, while letting managers function more as coaches of self-motivating teams.
Gemesa last year ran its factories with 56 employees per boss, PepsiCo says, instead of the 12:1 ratio that prevailed in the mid-1990s. The changes have helped Gemesa improve its business results, the company adds.
Valerie Smeets and Frederic Warzynski, associate professors at the Aarhus School of Business in Denmark, recently analyzed management arrangements at a major Scandinavian company. Their findings, being published in Labour Economics, show an increasing ability for bosses to manage more workers.
At the unnamed high-tech manufacturing company, bosses supervised an average of 30 workers in 2004, up from 24.4 in 1997.
The researchers offered several possible reasons for managers’ increased span of control, the technical term for how many workers are being supervised. Improved communications techniques may ’help managers leverage their knowledge, solve more problems and supervise larger teams,’ they wrote.
In addition, managers with wide spans of control tend to get paid more and are promoted to run larger groups, the authors found. That could lead ambitious managers to look for ways to widen their spans of control.
The diversity of work settings means there’s no universal recommendation for the number of subordinates that a manager should oversee. A manager in a factory or call center may be able handle a relatively large group, because jobs are more similar and employees can be briefed in groups. But a boss supervising people with sharply different duties may reach capacity faster. At the extreme, a chief executive overseeing the heads of finance, operations, sales, research and the like must spend time on time-consuming, one-on-one dynamics.
Not all companies are eager to give bosses more subordinates. Sun Microsystems Inc. prefers work teams of 10 people or fewer, says Ann Bamesberger, vice president, Open Work Services group, at the Santa Clara, Calif., computer company.
Sun lately has put more energy into redesigning work environments, so that teams can expand or contract more easily as projects evolve, says Ms. Bamesberger. Among those initiatives: better support for engineers who sometimes work from home and flexible seating so that growing teams can fit in new members without losing proximity.
One boss with more than two dozen people reporting to her is Cindy Zollinger, president of Cornerstone Research, litigation-consulting firm.
’I don’t really manage them in a typical way,’ Ms. Zollinger says. ’They largely run themselves. I help them in dealing with obstacles they face, or in making the most of opportunities that they find.’
Cornerstone provides expert testimony in court cases. Its officers and project managers have a clear enough sense of how to tackle each project, Ms. Zollinger says, that she doesn’t need to micromanage the process.
’We do have executive-committee meetings,’ where major policy matters are discussed face-to-face, she says. ’But most routine issues can be dealt with by email. That’s a time-saver.’