There is a simple test I use when I look at an agency org chart: can every manager count all of their direct reports on one hand?
If the answer is no, I already have a good idea of where some of the team’s problems are likely coming from.
I call this the “one hand rule.” No manager — including the agency owner — should have more than five direct reports. Not because there is anything magical about the number five, but because five is roughly the limit at which good management remains genuinely possible. Past that point, something starts to slip. And what slips first is usually the weekly one-on-one.
Why it keeps coming up
A few years ago I was working with an agency owner and asked for an org chart at the start of our engagement. Thirteen people reported directly to him. He was genuinely puzzled about why his team felt unsupported and why problems kept catching him off guard.
It was not a mystery. He could not give thirteen people the regular attention they needed. Nobody could.
It’s not as if he planned to have that many direct reports, it just happened.
I see versions of this constantly in owner-led agencies. The team grows gradually, one hire at a time, and the org chart stays flat because adding structure always feels premature. There is never quite the right moment to formalize a reporting layer. So the owner ends up as the manager of eight, ten, twelve people — and real management quietly disappears.
The org chart says one thing. The actual experience of the people on that team says something else.
The management that actually matters
Managing people well requires regular, intentional attention. It means understanding how each person is doing, what is getting in their way, where they need coaching, and what is quietly going sideways before it becomes a visible problem.
That kind of management takes time. When a manager has too many direct reports, something has to give. What usually gives first is the weekly one-on-one.
Every manager should hold a weekly one-on-one with each direct report — not biweekly, not monthly, not when there is finally a slow week to fit it in. The math here is useful. With five direct reports, weekly 1:1s take two to four hours a week which should be manageable. With eight or nine people, you are looking at four to six hours or more, every week, just in those conversations. Something has to give. Usually it is the meetings.
And when the meetings go, everything else follows.
What slips when 1:1s slip
A well-run 1:1 is not a status update. It is the employee’s meeting. It’s a space to surface concerns, flag problems early, and get real coaching. It is also how a manager stays close enough to what is actually happening to intervene before things get bad.
When those meetings become inconsistent, the early warning system shuts down. The employee who seems fine in team settings might reveal in a private conversation that they are overwhelmed, but only if that conversation is actually happening. The project that looks on track turns out to be heading for trouble. By the time the problem surfaces, the easy window to fix it has closed.
There is also a meaningful difference between a manager who assigns work and one who develops the people doing it. That development happens in regular, unhurried conversation. Skip the meetings and you are not really managing anymore. You are directing traffic, often without looking both ways.
The “we can’t afford layers” objection
Agency owners who resist adding management structure usually frame it as avoiding bureaucracy. We are small. We do not need layers. We are not a big company.
That reasoning sounds sensible until you look at what unclear management actually costs. Performance suffers when people are not getting real feedback. Problems compound because they are not caught early. People leave because they feel unsupported, and turnover in a small agency is expensive in ways that go well beyond the cost to replace someone.
Unclear management is not free. It is just expensive in ways that do not show up cleanly on a P&L.
In most cases, adding a management layer is not about creating new complexity. It is about acknowledging what is already happening. There is usually someone on the team who is already acting like a manager — fielding questions, directing work, keeping things moving. Formalizing that role gives the work clarity and accountability. That is not bureaucracy. That is honesty about how the agency actually runs.
What the one hand rule is actually about
The rule is not about org chart theory, titles, or hierarchy. It is about making sure that every person who works for you has a manager with enough bandwidth to actually pay attention to them.
When that condition is not met, management becomes performance. Meetings happen sporadically. Coaching disappears. Employees figure out that they are largely on their own. The agency gets harder to run and harder to work in, and the owner becomes the bottleneck for decisions that should never have needed to reach them.
If you cannot realistically hold a meaningful weekly 1:1 with every one of your direct reports, you have too many direct reports. That is the test. Not a head count or a chart, but the practical reality of whether you can give each person what they actually need.
Count your fingers. If you run out, you already know what to fix.
* Before you send me an email to point it out, I understand that a thumb is not technically a finger. Work with me here, OK?
