I quit Amazon after being assigned 21 direct reports | Hacker News Reader

I quit Amazon after being assigned 21 direct reports

businessinsider.com

19 pointsmiles21 comments

Separately, at this point, people that work at Amazon know what they’re getting into. I’m not sure we need a new article like this every week.

https://archive.is/jg9jB

For a historical comparison, Roman Centurions had teams of 60-80. They started out with 100, but that was too many.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion

I don't think all of them were getting weekly one-on-ones, though.

Their direct reports were the decani:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contubernium_(Roman_army_unit)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decanus

Cool! TIL. That does seem more manageable.

My god, these stories break my heart.

Not sure if that is sarcastic or not, but the whole article seems to be "middle manager doesn't like basic parts of being a middle manager".

We should all discourage organizations that set people up to do a bad job. If I'm going to have a manager, I don't want one with 21 direct reports. With so many reports, it's incredibly unlikely that they'd be able to offer much of anything that a good manager should be doing. That's very little time for coaching, using their position to unblock you, identifying problems you're having that are coming across the team, recognizing your strengths, collecting feedback from colleagues, helping you develop a promotion plan, or even just holding 1:1s.

>We should all discourage organizations that set people up to do a bad job.

That doesn't seem like the case here though. One of the things she was complaining about was participating in new manager training. 21 direct reports isn't that many. Managers have to prioritize their time differently than other jobs.

Ultimately it seems like she had accepted a transfer to a management position to maintain a job instead of being laid off or being transferred to some other sort of job and then realized that she wasn't cut out for management. It's OK to not be cut out for management, most people aren't, but pretending it was anything extreme is ridiculous.

> One of the things she was complaining about was participating in new manager training.

She specifically mentions feeling like it overwhelming and ineffective. That's not the same as complaining that she had to do it, which is what your comment implies.

) However, even as an experienced manager, I felt overwhelmed by the number of videos I had to watch. Also, I didn't feel that they were the most effective way to learn.

When have you had 21 direct reports?

Some managers like to have weekly 1:1s as an opportunity to check in and for the employee to bring up any problems that might have emerged, ask for help etc. with 21 that’s obviously impossible.

The only management style available is “lol good luck, hope you can manage yourself because I can’t” fine for people who don’t want management intervention, don’t need help promoting, don’t need help learning or tackling the next challenge. Fine for people who can effectively write their own evals for the manager to rubber stamp. Not great if anything goes wrong.

Have you ever had an employee who needed a lot of support? Who was going through something tough? Attacking something slightly outside their comfort zone? I guess the answer at Amazon is fire and move on.

You should post an essay on your management style and how you handle the “perfectly reasonable” 21 direct reports situation. I am generally curious.

She was in HR, so managing 21 direct reports doing diddly squat isn't much anyways.

> Not sure if that is sarcastic or not, but the whole article seems to be "middle manager doesn't like basic parts of being a middle manager".

Can you share which parts made you think that? I don't think that's a fair assessment.

I was unexpectedly appointed manager

>I was unexpectedly appointed manager

Presumably you were either on the track for management or agreed to accept the position in lieu of some other sort of transfer or lay off, much like the person in the article. Management isn't for everyone, but nothing in the article sounds out of bounds for a normal management job and 21 reports isn't really a lot.

21 direct reports is far too many to be an effective manager. I currently manage 8 technical people and 8-10 seems to be the sweet spot, where I have time to do things like have 1-1s, help with career planning, get people promoted, deal with escalations or cross-team issues, hire replacements, etc.

I have had as many as 15 and after 10 you really just have to start picking what you want to fall off of your plate as a manager. Unfortunately, the things that fall off first are the things that help your direct reports the most. Eventually, you just get behind on everything and end up being completely reactive and only able to focus on short-term solutions.

21 direct reports are a lot if you want to be a good manager and support your people.

21 reports may not be a lot in a vacuum. It is certainly an overwhelming number of people to suddenly become responsible for — even more so if the team is spread across different cultures and time zones.

Is 21 a big number? At most places I've been (in various European countries) 12-15 direct reports has generally been considered on the lower side and 30 wasn't considered abnormal in any way.

If each manager can only manage 5-10 people doesn't that just lead to unnecessarily many layers of management?

With 10 direct reports per manager, you can have 100,000 people with 5 layers of management. That’s a lot of people. Is that too many layers of management?

It’s weird how different cultures can be. I’m in Sweden and never had a boss with less than 30 reports.

What was the function of the bosses in Sweden? How closely do they follow their reports' work? How involved are they with their reports' performance evaluations, and how many times per year was the evaluation? Do they push for their reports to get promoted, or help them get their achievements published or widely presented? Do they provide any help with complex administrative issues like immigration, medical or parental leave, etc.?

In the US, I've never had a boss with more the seven.

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