If you want to manage people effectively, help them by making sure the org chart leaves as little as possible to the imagination.  It should paint a crystal-clear picture of reporting relationships and make it patently obvious who is responsible for what results. Just as important, it should be flat. Look, every layer in an organization puts spin on a new initiative or organizational event.  Its like that childrens whispering game, telephone.  Every time a piece of information travels through another person, it changes.  Layers do that too, adding interpretation and buzz as information travels up and down the ladder.  The trick, then, is to have fewer rungs. Layers have other vices.  They have add cost and complexity to everything.  They slow things down because they increase the number of approvals and meetings required for anything to move forward.  They have an odious way of burying new businesses, or small units in big companies, in honeycombs of bureaucracy.  They tend to make little generals out of perfectly normal people who find themselves in hierarchies that only respond to rank. The awfulness of layers is nothing new to anyone.  And yet companies gravitate toward them.  For some, layers feel like the only way to respond to growth.  More sales quick, add more district managers in the field.  More employees quick, add more staff at headquarters. For others, the  reasoning  is  even  worse.   Layers  are a  way  to  give people  the  feeling  of  growth  when there  is  none.    Layers  allow  you to  give  employees  promotions  instead of  raises.   Thats  better  than doing nothing, right?    Wrong! The inexorable  pull  toward  layers  is  why  I suggest  you  make  your  company  50  percent flatter than  youd normally  feel  comfortable  with.   Managers  should have  ten  direct reports  at  the  minimum  and 30 to 50 percent more if  they  are  experienced.

Winning ,  pp.  115116