I am sending this note with specific reference to those of you with interested in Executive Team Performance, the “Found” programme or have a broad interest in the work of Elliott Jaques. There are a number of short points here, so do read on and where appropriate, please pass on to others who may be interested – Best wishes – Andrew
PhD Topic –“Exploring the Conditions of Executive Teams and Strategy Deliverance through a Requisite Organisation Principles Analysis” - Feedback from CEOs in Australia, UK, South Africa and Argentina on this topic available at my new blog …..
I recently sent out a personal note to a number of CEOs and senior academics with whom I have worked to test a possible PhD topic. Their feedback is interesting (go tohttp://andrewolivier.blogspot.com to read comments) as many CEOs focused on defining what is “success” in such a rapidly changing world. Almost all felt that an in-depth study of executive teams and their delivery on strategic intent and strategy from a Requisite Principles (RP) perspective would be welcome. Academics felt one would need to demonstrate that Jaques’s theory differed from other management theories if it was to be used as a tool for examining success, while others felt that it would be difficult to find supervisors because academics view Elliott Jaques work with hostility / suspicion and it is not taught in business schools. See article at end of Enewsfrom The Economist, which perhaps sheds some insight into why some academics haven’t accepted Jaques…
Requisite Organisation Principles have evolved over fifty years globally and offers a comprehensive approach for managerial leadership. By Requisite Principles (RP) I refer to the following specifics that are executive team accountabilities and clearly defined in Jaques et al;
¨Setting Strategy and Strategic Intent – (number of strategies emanating from executive team and time span (i.e. tactical & strategic)
¨Designing Structure & Alignment (including Unique Value Add (UVA) of roles, Cross functional Alignments, & Levels of Work)
¨Assigning Authority and Accountability (empowering the structure to deliver on strategic imperatives)
¨Effective Tasking (Tasking, Trusting & Tending – including Team Leadership)
¨Manager Once Removed (coherence of leadership, direction, quality and quantity, talent management)
¨Personal Effectiveness Appraisals (appraising against performance on issues individuals can control)
¨Culture and Systems of Work (conditions for creating success, obstacles and enablers)
¨Board and CEO accountability for effective level of capability of team (function of Cognitive Capability, Wisdom, Knowledge/Skills/Experience, Values)
UPDATE ON “FOUND” – Sir John Whitmore “Found” for tea at the Diamond Valley Learning Centre. (See Attachment)
Sir John is a pre-eminent thinker in leadership and organisational change. He is passionate about education and has been the driving force behind the Transformation Project, a project that seeks to transform education in the UK. Kate Schanknecht, Manager of the DVLC cordially invites you to tea on 26th March 10:30am – 12:00pm to meet Sir John and listed to him talk about the Transformation Project, and the exciting possibilities of coaching in schools...
“Found” targets disadvantaged or “at risk” young adults in an urban or regional context who have the potential to develop over time though one additional Work Level. The intervention provide participants with accelerated development for three Working Journey streams, supporting them to acquiring knowledge, skills and experience and wisdom to contribute effectively, both in their workplaces and within their communities.
Executive Coaching - creating Successful Working Journey Strategies using RO Principles…
In 1998 I did a Working Journey interview with Gareth Ackerman and we have kept contact ever since, sometimes acting as counsel. Gareth has just been appointed MD of Pick n Pay (a group like Woolworths, who also own Franklins in NSW). Congratulations to him and may the Group go from strength to strength under your guidance and also on winning the global social responsibility award.
If you are looking for an executive coach for people in Level IV (General Manager) or above roles, or have identified high potential please do contact me for mentoring services; exploring possibilities of helping you pragmatically in your working environment and crafting a longer term Working Journey strategy…
If you are a new CEO, entrepreneur and even considering legacy issues, please contact me for a discussion…..
An Institute dedicated to furthering the ideas, research and teachings of Elliott Jaques?
I am considering setting up an institute dedicated to teaching, research and furthering the ideas of Jaques et al. Jaques work has played an important role in Australia for many decades and has been used in various ways by organisations such as Westpac, CBA, CSIRO, Telstra, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, the ADF, ETSA to mention some of the more well known. Despite that, the work has remained almost as an underground movement, with fragmented practitioners and isolated organisations using bits and pieces of the work.
The work needs direction and leadership. We are interested in taking this idea further and creating an institution modeled along similar lines to the Global Organisation, a not for profit in Canada. If you are interested in being a possible member of such an organisation, please let me know .
Elliott Jaques - May 1st 2009 - From Economist.com
In “The Strategy Paradox”, a book published in 2007 and written by Michael Raynor, a consultant and co-author with Clayton Christensen of “The Innovator’s Solution”, the author says: “For my money, the most undeservedly ignored management researcher of the modern era is Elliott Jaques (pronounced ‘Jacks’). The Canadian-born psychologist’s work on the nature of hierarchy spans half a century and is based on extensive field data on how people behave at work and how they feel about their roles.”
Jaques (1917-2003) decided that jobs could be defined in terms of their time horizon. For example, a director of marketing might be worried about marketing campaigns for next year, while a salesman on the road is worried about reaching his targets for the week. Jaques also believed that people had a “boss” and a “real boss”. The boss was the person to whom they were nominally responsible, while the real boss was the person to whom they turned to get decisions crucial to the continuation of their work.
The sales manager in charge of a sales force would not have a longer time horizon than the people in his sales force. So when a salesman wanted a decision on something affecting his ability to deliver to his clients, he would go over the head of the sales manager for that decision. Jaques called this “level skipping”, and identified it as a dangerous pathology in any hierarchy.
He then looked at the time horizons of people, their bosses and their real bosses, and he found that people with a time horizon of less than three months treated those with a horizon of 3–12 months as their real bosses, and so on up the scale. He identified seven different time horizons, from three months to 20 years, and argued that organisations, no matter how complex, should have seven levels of hierarchy, each corresponding to a different managerial time horizon. Jacques’s theory has come to be known as RO (requisite organisation).
It is never possible to tell from an organisation chart just who is manager of whom; in effect, it is a wise manager (or subordinate) who knows his own subordinate (or manager).
Much of Jacques’s work was carried out in Britain. Although a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, he was a founding member of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London, and much of the research on which his theories were based was carried out at Glacier Metal between 1948 and 1965. His first important book, “The Changing Culture of a Factory”, was about his research at Glacier, and he subsequently wrote “The Glacier Project Papers” (1965) with the company’s managing director, Wilfred Brown.
Raynor and others have speculated as to why Jaques has not been more widely recognised for his achievement. One suggestion is that neither he nor Brown felt the work of management academics had scientific validity. So they never quoted them, and the management academics returned the compliment. “The net impact has been the isolation of this theory from the main dialogue on management and organisations,” speculates one commentator.
Notable publications (adapted)
“The Changing Culture of a Factory”, Tavistock Publishing, 1951
“Measurement of Responsibility: A Study of Work, Payment and Individual Capacity”, Tavistock Publishing, 1956; reprint, Heinemann Educational, 1972
“A General Theory of Bureaucracy”, Heinemann, 1976; reprint, Gower, 1986
“In Praise of Hierarchy”, Harvard Business Review, 1990
“Requisite Organisation”, Cason Hall, First Edition 1989, reprinted and revised, 1996, 1998.
“Social Power and the CEO” – Leadership and Trust in a Sustainable Free Enterprise System”. Quorum. 2002
Guess Who? – What level of work do you think this person operated as an illiterate individual / what Mode and who do you think he is the father of??
Geologist Karl Twitchell came to Arabia in 1931 to look for gold and water – he didn’t find any, but found oil. The Arabian American Oil Company was formed, and a young man (let us call him M) managed to get a job with this new company as a brick lawyer... The company, ARAMCO, was under pressure from the Saudi King to train more locals and as M was hard working and good at what he did, he began to receive modest projects. ARAMCO quickly recognised him as an exacting and honest builder, (he had grown into a small handsome man with one glass eye, which was the result of a blow from a teacher in his first days of school) – although he had left school illiterate.
ARAMCO in 1933 began a programme that granted employees leave for a year to try their hand at their own business and if they failed, they could return with no loss of status. The M company was one of many enterprises that started with this early affirmative action programme. M worked closely with his team, building loyalty and sometimes taking unprofitable projects just to keep the team together. His men called him mu'alim (teacher, craftsman)
M was renovating houses when his work caught attention of Minister of Finance, who lauded his skills to the King Abdul Aziz and M won favour by building a ramp for the King’s car to his bedroom, which M tested himself to make sure it was safe). His reputation grew and became close to the royal family. Loyalty was rewarded when a British contractor defaulted and the major contract was given to M. Saudi Arabia needed roads and moved in, becoming Caterpillars biggest client for a short period.
In 1953 M began renovating Mecca and would renovate and work on almost all the major shrines of Islam. The Mecca renovations would eventually total some $18 billion. M began to diversify, as the result of clever alliances and his construction company became one of the largest in the world and M set up a telecommunications company representing Bell as well as a finance company. When King Fasul took over from the disastrous King Saud, whose spending spree had almost bankrupted the Kingdom, M quietly fronted the King money to cover the payroll and interest on the debt. This man from an illiterate background was killed in a plane accident in 1967. His son, one of 54 children by various wives, would come to world wide attention.
