Quality vs Quantity (Relationships)
Dunbar's number and how it relates to those serving people with disabilities
Back in the 1990’s Robin Dunbar, a British Sociologist, proposed human beings were cognitively limited to how many relationships they could have. According to his theory, the maximum number of people the average person could keep up with is 150. His informal definition, according to Wikipedia, is “the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.”
When I was a Financial Advisor I would often hear that the average Financial Advisor couldn’t provide great service to more than 100 - 150 clients. Over the years I found this to be true. As Advisors grew more successful (in terms of the number of clients) they would add staff to serve their clients. It’s also not unusual for Advisors to segment clients, providing a higher level of service to the clients providing the most revenue. In some cases, this meant the Advisor wouldn’t personally interact with some clients.
What does this have to do with the disability community? Quite a bit, in my opinion. I’m going to look at three examples where I feel we need to study the impact of Dunbar’s number. School Transition Coordinators, State Medicaid Waiver Case Managers, and State Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors. I’m sure there are more examples we can look at, but addressing at least one of these three would be a great start.
