Apple leads only a few people and the responsibilities are increasing. It is a holdover from the Jobs era, says the former manager

Large corporations are typically overseen by a large number of managers. Apple seems to be going against the tide, while the number of employees and departments is constantly increasing. It is said to be a legacy from the time of Steve Jobs.

Compared to other American corporations, we do not find many people in the current top management. Apple keeps only a select few in the narrow management, who further delegate the work to their subordinates. That's not exactly bad, though the company is constantly growing and doing business in new sectors.

The departure of top managers is also a problem. Angela Ahrendts left the company this year, and Jony Ive is also set to leave. But new people will not take their place, but their responsibilities will be transferred to already employed people.

Tim Cook currently has around 20 top managers under him who report directly to him and new ones are not coming. Retail director Angela Ahrendts left her entire agenda to current HR director Dierdre O'Brien. She will now be responsible for 23 areas in Apple. The situation is similar with the departure of Jony Ive, who will leave his design department to COO Jeff Williams, whose agenda will thus grow to 10 branches.

Both Google and Microsoft rely on more specialized managers

At the same time, comparably large corporations such as Google and Microsoft rely on a much broader base of managers who are more specialized and have fewer agendas and thus greater visibility.

Apple has approximately 115 managers in the US, while employing around 84 people. By comparison, Microsoft relies on 000 managers for 546 employees.

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Tim Cook Eddy Cue Macrumors

Tim Cook and Eddy Cue

Tim Cook Vital Signs Macworld

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Jony Ive and Tim Cook

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Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering

A former Apple executive says Apple's current lean hierarchy is a holdover from the Steve Jobs era. After his return, he decided to "clean up" the bloated company and speed up all decision-making processes. The key then was to embrace change quickly. But the company was many times smaller.

At Apple's size today, however, it is said to be survival and managers are overloaded. In addition, the company plans to hire another 2023 employees in new departments by 20. Whether lean management will continue to be effective remains to be seen.

Source: The Information