Why Your Team Might Be Too Big (and Less Effective Than You Think)
Imagine you’re assembling a team to tackle a complex project. You bring in the best minds, each with unique expertise. More people should mean more brainpower, faster problem-solving, and higher productivity…right?
Not necessarily.
Research in organizational psychology suggests that bigger teams often underperform—not because they lack talent, but because they have too much complexity to manage.
In 1972, psychologist Ivan Steiner introduced a deceptively simple formula to explain this:
A team’s potential productivity is the best it could perform based on the skills and knowledge of its members. But the actual productivity is always lower due to process losses—the inefficiencies that emerge when too many people try to coordinate, communicate, and collaborate.
And the bigger the team, the worse the problem gets.
The Hidden Cost of Large Teams
Here’s the problem with big teams: as you add members, the number of possible one-on-one relationships explodes. The formula is:
That means:
- A four-person team has six unique relationships.
- A six-person team has 15 relationships.
- A seven-person team has 21 relationships.
Each additional person doesn’t just add another perspective—they add layers of coordination challenges, competing priorities, and communication breakdowns.
Steiner identified three major types of process losses that explain why bigger teams don’t always perform better:
1. Coordination Losses: Who's Doing What?
Ever been in a meeting where too many people are talking, and no one seems to be moving the project forward? That's coordination loss.
The more people involved, the harder it is to divide work efficiently. Tasks slip through the cracks, decision-making slows down, and time is wasted managing logistics rather than making progress.
2. Motivation Losses: The Social Loafing Effect
When teams get too big, individual accountability shrinks. Social psychology calls this social loafing—when people exert less effort in a group because they assume others will pick up the slack.
It’s the classic group project problem: a five-person team might have three people doing the heavy lifting while the other two coast. The more members, the easier it is to hide behind the crowd.
3. Communication Losses: Too Many Voices, Too Little Clarity
Every extra person in a group adds noise—more emails, more Slack messages, more meetings. But more communication isn’t always better communication.
With too many people in the loop, messages get distorted, critical details get lost, and the speed of execution slows to a crawl. Instead of making decisions, large teams often get stuck in an endless cycle of alignment meetings and email threads.
So, What’s the Ideal Team Size?
Steiner’s work (and follow-up research) suggests that teams perform best when they are small—but not too small.
Psychologist Brian Little found that teams of 4-6 people often strike the right balance:
- Small enough to stay nimble.
- Large enough to bring diverse perspectives.
- Few enough to minimize coordination overhead.
At Harvard, Little set a hard limit for student project teams—no more than six people. Why? Because a six-person team has 15 relationship pairs, but a seven-person team jumps to 21 pairs—and that jump is enough to noticeably impact efficiency.
Of course, the right team size depends on the task. Some challenges require bigger teams (think: large-scale operations, cross-functional projects). But for most knowledge work, smaller teams outperform larger ones in speed, efficiency, and engagement.
What This Means for Leaders
If your team feels slow, unproductive, or bogged down in endless meetings, don’t assume the solution is adding more people. Instead, ask:
- Is our team small enough to be nimble?
- Do we have the right mix of skills—not just more people?
- Are process losses (coordination, motivation, communication) slowing us down?
Bigger teams aren’t always better teams. Smaller, smarter, and more intentional teams win every time.
