Show Notes
How many people report to you right now? And how many of them did you have a real conversation with last week? Not a hallway hello. Not a status update. A real conversation, about them. If that second number is a lot smaller than the first, you are not a bad manager. Your team got bigger, and nobody gave you more hours.
You are not imagining it. Gallup tracks how many people report to the average manager. In 2013 it was about eight. By 2025 it was about twelve. Same 24 hours. And when the team grows and the time doesn't, your time goes to whoever is loudest, whoever is struggling, and whoever is standing in your doorway. The quiet, steady people get the leftovers.
Here is the good news. Gallup found that the size of the team is not what decides whether people stay engaged. What decides it is whether each person gets meaningful feedback from their manager every week, and it does not take long conversations. Fifteen to thirty minutes, done consistently, is enough. A bigger team does not need more of you. It needs you spent on purpose.
In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Wide Team, three moves for how to manage a large team when you can't give everyone equal time.
ONE. SORT BEFORE YOU SPREAD. Every Monday, before you open your email, take ten minutes and sort your team into three groups. Stuck: they need you this week. Stretching: they need a challenge, not a check-in. Steady: they need to know you see them. Then make sure your quietest, most reliable person hears one real thing from you before Friday.
TWO. SAY IT ONCE. Stop repeating the same update in twelve one-on-ones. The news goes out once, to everybody, at the same time, in one short weekly huddle: here's what changed, here's what's coming, here's what I need from you. Then your one-on-ones open with this: the updates are covered, this time is yours.
THREE. DON'T BE THE ONLY DOOR. Pick one or two people from your stretching group and give them a piece of the people work, like being the first stop for a new hire's how-do-I questions. Not a title. A piece of the work. Then tell the team out loud, because if you don't say it out loud, it's not a role.
This is people management for the team you actually have: sort your time, say it once, and make sure nobody on your team has only one door to knock on. --------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here
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