The way a team works together effectively will change as the number of people in the team increases.
An organisation of 10 people acts very differently to an organisation of 200.
Getting from 10 to 200 can be a difficult journey to manage at the best of times, although in a venture-backed start-up the growth rate is often accelerated artificially such that the number of people joining the company builds the team size quicker than otherwise would be the case. A company who relies on organic growth will not add people as quickly and the adaptation time is slower.
I've experienced this growth challenge several times. It's not easy. Here's why.
I like to use an anthropological analogy to illustrate the point.
A group of 4-10 people will act like a "hunting party". Together they go out on a hunt with a prey in mind but they are very tactical, communicating in real time as the circumstances dictate. There may be a leader and the leader emerges as being the person that all the others defer to and they are happy to be the leader.
A group of 10-40 people will act like "family huts". Imagine that each family has a hut around a central fireplace. Each family has a leader and these leaders and the elders will sit around the fire to share stories and make plans. Life is relatively spontaneous. Everybody knows everybody else, they communicate directly with each other as needed yet they spend more time with their own family than anyone else.
A group of 40-150 people will act as a "small village". In the village everyone has specific roles and there are people in charge of various things. Someone might be in charge of security, another in charge of energy, another in charge of the harvest. Everyone knows everyone else to a degree but things start to get done effectively by using a light hierarchy. Each function has a leader. To get that function to operate effectively, you need to get the leader to instruct their team of specialists to do the job required.
A group of 150 people+ is like a "town" and the default organisation is a strict hierarchy. Large groups like this work through the power of the hierarchy.
(See also "Dunbar's Number, Cross 150 With Caution")
There is a reason why a hierarchy works better when there are more people.
Imagine you have 10 people. 10 people communicate directly with 10 people, verbally, via email, on the phone. That's 10 x 10 potential lines of communication open at all times. 100 threads. If there are 50 people and they do the same thing, it's 50 x 50 = 2500 threads. 5 times as many people creates 25 times as much noise. We can't cope with so much noise. To organise ourselves we naturally create groups and communicate with the group leader who then coordinates the activity of his or her group. Less noise.
The type of person that operates effectively in a hunting party may not like town life. In fact the reason they are a good hunter is because they are not townies. People have preferred methods of organisation and communication, learnt behaviours and default reactions to situations.
A startup might hire some great people when they are small. These great people might not like the environment they find themselves in a couple of years later when a new mode of organisation would be more effective. They still act like it's a hunting party. Those new hires who are used to living in a village or a town join the company expecting things to work like a village or a town because that's the size of the organisation - but they are confronted by hunters who act in a way that they need to adapt to.
The challenge for growth companies therefore is to adapt and change whilst maintaining effectiveness as well as acquiring and retaining talent. Simply being aware of what is happening with the group dynamics helps, as does anticipating changes that might be needed as a result of a changing group size. Communication structures work well if adopted by the majority, that's challenging if there are different expectations within the group.
There's no magic formula, this is human nature we're dealing with. Awareness is a great first step.
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