Published September 2001

When in Rome, or not, think ‘span of control’

The Roman army in its day was absolutely matchless. There was no military force in the world that could stand up to it. Historians are still debating the causes of the “rise and fall” of the Roman Empire, but the army fielded by this empire was, by any standard, remarkable.

The success of the Roman army was not due to technology, at least not in the sense that we use that word today. Nor was it nutritional, though the army was largely vegetarian, and troops in the declining years of the empire did mutiny over the substitution of meat for grain.

If we had to select the single factor that contributed the most to the army’s success, it would be this: organization. And while your business goals may not include conquering the Gauls, subduing the Visigoths, or crushing the Carthaginians, we can learn something useful from the Roman army’s organizational strengths. (In the event that your goals do include such things, of course, so much the better.)

It was the Roman army that developed the concept of “span of control,” an operational idea that developed out of the nature of combat in those times. Although technological developments — archery, thrown spears, cavalry, etc. — had changed things somewhat, warfare still tended to devolve into hand-to-hand combat. The Romans found that the disciplined, massed strength of the phalanx could overwhelm an enemy that outnumbered them.

But while that phalanx was the key to the army’s success, it was the span-of-control concept inside the phalanx that ultimately gave it its strength. It can do the same for your organization, your business.

The span of control used in the Roman army was this: No soldier should be directly responsible for more than three people — who, literally, were within arm’s reach and whose work and needs could be readily seen. Someone would be responsible for each group of three, and someone would be responsible for those three supervisors, and so on. A centurion, then, who had a total of about 100 troops, would still only have three people reporting directly to him.

This, of course, is the origin of what we now call a “hierarchical structure.” In more recent times, the hierarchical structure has received a good deal of abuse by management analysts, but the underlying concept of span of control, and its efficiency, has not been so easily eradicated.

How can you apply the span-of-control concept in your business? And, as importantly, how do you know if you are doing it right?

The best way to apply the span-of-control concept is to clarify reporting responsibilities, which tend to get blurry in these days of “flattened” management structures and self-directed teams.

If you have too many people reporting to you, two things will happen — both bad. First, you will become the organization’s bottleneck and can quickly blow away any money you saved by getting rid of middle management. Second, it becomes much harder for the individuals reporting to you to feel that their work is seen, recognized and appreciated. This encourages “office politics” as workers angle and maneuver to get your attention. Eventually, this will discourage initiative and undermine the effectiveness of the organization.

How many is too many? Like the experts always say, “it depends.” Some management experts say you can have up to and including 15, but issues of efficiency and motivation begin to emerge once you get the number over six or seven. Serious problems almost always surface once you hit double digits.

Span of control is a simple concept, but that doesn’t mean that applying it is easy. There are difficult trade-offs between too much hierarchy (small span of control), which costs money and can dampen initiative, and too little (large span of control), which can create top-down bottlenecks and wasteful, unfocused activity.

A hard look at the span of control in our organization can snap us out of the delusion that, by ourselves, we can effectively manage large numbers of people. What is closer to the truth is that we can inspire and motivate a lot of people, but real management is a demanding task, and we cannot effectively be there for them when they need us.

We can lead millions of people, but we can manage just a few.

James McCusker, a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant, writes “Your Business” in The Herald each Sunday. He can be reached by sending e-mail to otisrep@aol.com.

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