In fast growing teams, it seems like Everything Is Constantly Broken. Every new management system you bring, seems to be obsolete by the time you implement it. When I was running my own organization, I blamed myself when this happened. Till I read about the rule of 3 & 10s…
I first heard Phil Libin (ex-CEO of Evernote) mention this. He learnt it from Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten. It’s not a scientific rule but more a rule of thumb born from observation. It explains the challenges of a growing team & what to do about it.
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At the start, it’s just you or 1 more person. This is a simple state & you can work with little to no formal structure. There is often clarity of responsibilities & confusion can be cleared quickly by just chatting.
Then you add 1 more person & something fundamental changes.
Now it is possible for 2 people to be in sync & for the 3rd person to be out of loop. Mis-communication & confusion become more common. So you put in place some simple systems around taking decisions, sharing updates etc. to keep everyone on the same page. All is well again.
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These systems work till about 10 people. After 10 something core changes again: Now everyone can’t fit around 1 table. You hear: ‘I am attending too many meetings’ ’I feel out of loop as I am not called for meetings’ ‘Our decision making is slow’ ‘We are taking rash decisions’
You decide to make big changes. You create small teams with their own managers. You update processes for decision making, goals, communication, hiring etc. It’s a lot of work but things finally settle down. You feel great & you can now get back to your awesome mission.
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All of this works fine till you reach about 30 people, beyond which something fundamental changes again: Now your team can’t even fit in 1 room. You either have too many small teams (confusion around ownership) OR Your small teams are too big (things feel stuck & slow)
It takes a lot of effort to align everyone, gain clarity, generate consensus, do stuff. Also you have lost one of your most effective moves as a leader: ‘Let me get everyone in the same room & fix-align-clarify-motivate’ Your nimble startup now starts to feel like a bureaucracy.
So you go about changing everything again. You even hire someone to lead all this for you (People-Culture-Processes). Eventually you build systems that work. You are not as fast as when you were 10 people but you feel you are in a good shape for a 50-70 person company.
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But it all changes when you go beyond 100 people: Now everyone can’t fit on the same floor-office. And on it goes. Everything keeps breaking at multiples of 3 & 10. This might sound dispiriting but I found it comforting when I first encountered it. 3 reasons:
1️⃣ I understood that this was the nature of growth & every company went through this. It reduced my guilt when things broke. 2️⃣ I stopped looking for perfect systems. Instead focussed on systems, good-enough for now. 3️⃣ I tried to anticipate these changed & preparing for them
I think this ‘everything changes at multiples of 3-10’ captures what makes leading a growing team so hard. It feels like you are on an ever changing treadmill. Just as you get used to a speed-incline, the settings suddenly change & you are thrown off.
But I found that was unhelpful, to keep doubting my running skills, everytime I was thrown off. I did much better when I accepted these constant changes as the nature of this treadmill, focussed on adapting to the current settings & tried to anticipate the upcoming ones.
