Small enough for speed, big enough to scale

There’s a sweet spot when it comes to team size.

Too small and it’s hard to be competitive. Too big and maintaining culture becomes a problem. The sweet spot for a small-medium business is 15-20 people.

15-20 is a good number because it’s intimate enough for everyone to know each other but not too tiny that there’s no clear roles or departments. This is the point where you have close connections, operational efficiencies, agility, and flexibility. There are enough people to have clear specialties to own key functions, without the bureaucracy that slows down big businesses.

At Nitschke, we currently sit at 18 people (including me). This allows 4-5 people per department – leadership, operations, sales, and property management.
It’s important to find the size that fits your company best. Then, take the time to curate your organisational chart. Clarity of roles and responsibilities is more critical than the number of seats as the table.

We love to use EOS as the skeleton of our org chart.

Having an org chart (that you continue to update) is helpful because it’ll force you to think clearly about who you’re bringing into the team and why.

Be prepared to protect your company’s vision and culture whenever you hire someone new. Introducing an individual into an established team can disrupt the vibe, even if that person is a cultural fit. This is easier to manage with a highly connected, curated team of 15-20. The bigger a team gets, the more you need to watch for silos and cliques.

Learn to look for breaking point signs such as increased miscommunication, longer time to implementation, double handling, and tension within the team. It’s your role as the leader to ensure the energy is balanced, problems are quickly diffused, and you have team players.

As I’ve said before, CEOs should act like sports coaches.