Good Friday Freebie – Digital Book: Organization Design, Levels of Work and Human Capability
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 21, 2008
Free Digital Book
I authored a chapter in an edited book published last summer, Organization Design, Levels of Work and Human Capability. If you like the content of this blog and want to read more about the history and application of Elliott Jaques’ meta-model Requisite Organization, click here, fill out a survey for the Global Organization Design Society, and a digital copy of the book is yours free!
Buy the Book
Of course, you are welcome to buy the book as well.
Why Read the Book?
This book provides a systems design perspective on creating effective and engaging organizations. The book contains 32 short articles authored and edited by over 40 CEOs, consultants, academics, and management educators from seven countries.
This is required reading for those who want to fix the system!
Filed Under Accountability, Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Felt Fair Compensation, Managerial Leadership, Organization Design, Requisite Organization, Strategy, Succession Planning, Talent Management, Work Levels | Comments Off on Good Friday Freebie – Digital Book: Organization Design, Levels of Work and Human Capability
Who is a Leader?
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 20, 2008
?Insert Wisdom Here?
“A leader is one who releases the discretionary energy of others.”
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? –Jack Fallow
Today’s lesson:? Leadership is contextual not inherent.? Don’t leaders have leaders?? So one person’s leader is another’s follower.
Disengagement?
The problem is that within organizations, we often ask employees to follow someone who is not capable of being their leader.? This is yet another fast track to disengagement.
More experience, more tenure, more education does not necessarily qualify me to be another’s leader.
I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.
Filed Under Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Managerial Leadership | Comments Off on Who is a Leader?
Pay for Performance = Pay for Luck = Disengagement
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 18, 2008
Pay for Performance is Cruel
Given that “pay for performance” essentially means “pay for outcomes”, I’ve argued from day one that “pay for performance” is cruel and a breeding ground for corruption, not to mention disengagement.?
A new working paper from Carnegie Mellon and Harvard Business, No harm, No foul, The outcome bias in ethical judgments, comes to a similar conclusion.?
?Too often, workers are evaluated based on results and not based on the quality of the decision? behind the results, write HBS professor Max Bazerman and colleagues. ?Given that most consequential business decisions involve some uncertainty, the upshot is that organizations wind up rewarding luck rather than wisdom.?
Judging Effectiveness versus Measuring Performance
I’ve argued that managers need to be judging effectiveness not measuring performance.? The first requires a brain which can consider the context and circumstances surrounding an employee’s work.? The latter requires a calculator.
Until a calculator can provide me leadership, I don’t want one deciding my performance appraisal.
Our Beliefs Underpin Our Actions
We have tried to take the judgment (which will always be subjective and ineffable) out of management in a noble effort to be objective.? Similarly, we try to pretend decision making does not require a leap of faith.? Both are ludicrous, but both beliefs underpin most current performance management systems.
Systems Drive Behavior
Why would a sane person?give her heart, her discretionary effort to a system built on luck??? Helplessness breeds cynicism aka disengagement.?
Shall we continue our efforts to fix our “lazy” employees and try to motivate them with trinkets,?or rethink?our dysfunctional systems?
Filed Under Corporate Values, Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Felt Fair Compensation, Managerial Leadership, Requisite Organization | 6 Comments
Requisite Organization Design – A Work Levels Approach
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 16, 2008
Just like H2O can exist as ice, water, and steam, work can be stratified into discreet levels. ?Most single business units?have?five levels of work.? Each has a distinct role to play, and each calls for a different level of cognitive capacity.
Level 5?Work
The president at level 5 keeps his eyes on the industry and environment and conceives of the strategy – i.e. who we are and where are we going.? A hypothetical example: We will be a “Tack On” manufacturer.? Once others have released a technology breakthrough, we will imitate and produce.”
Level 4 Work
Then, level four function heads are the translators between the conceptual strategy, “Tack On” and current operations.? They have to constantly ask the question:? Does our current infrastructure (talent, equipment, budget, processes, technology, product line) support our strategy? ?If not, they have to make decisions about how to change the current operations to align with the strategy – by adding or subtracting products, markets, equipment, etc.
Level 3 Work
Level three managers are concerned with making day-to-day operations excellent, i.e. creating and refining best practices.? How do I use our current resources and infrastructure in the best way???How do I make them the fastest, cheapest, most efficient and effective? ?They create and continuously improve serial processes.??As decided necessary at level 4, level 3 managers?do implementation planning and “roll outs” of new technology, equipment, products, as well as contingency planning.
Level 2 Work
Level two is concerned with day-to-day oversight of the production of goods and services, i.e. getting staff hired, trained, scheduled and producing to spec.? They deal with exceptions to procedures.? Level two employees also may be accountable to produce, but level two production or service delivery requires the employee make judgments beyond those that can be fully specified in procedures.? (Level one work output can be fully specified up front.)
Level 1 Work
Level one follows procedures to create the product to spec. or to deliver the service as trained.
Strategic Work Versus Current Operations
Using the Requisite Organization work-levels?model above, you can see that levels 1 – 3 deal with current operations and levels 4 and 5 deal with creating value for the future and sustainability.
Requisite Organization Design (Vertical) – As Simple as Simple Can Be
To properly structure your organization, ensure that all roles report to a role that falls into the next higher level.? Look for my invoice in the mail.? :)
I’m OK.? You’re OK. Let’s fix the system.
Based on the descriptions above, can you place your role?? Bonus question:? Does your cognitive capacity match your role, or do you believe you could do work at the next higher level?? Our research shows that 20% of employees have cognitive capacity to work one level higher than their current role.
Filed Under Executive Leadership, Managerial Leadership, Organization Design, Requisite Organization, Strategy, Work Levels | 4 Comments
Read Mission Minded Management on Alltop
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 15, 2008
Guy Kawasaki has launched Alltop, a news aggregation website?with ?all the top? stories for 40 popular web topics.? Displayed on the site are the headline and first paragraph?of the last 5?stories from 40-80 topic sources.
Alltop’s Strategy
Alltop is like an “online magazine rack” displaying news from top publications and blogs.? Their goal is to satisfy the information needs of the 99% of Internet users who will never use an RSS feed reader or create a custom page.? Alltop stories are refreshed every 10 minutes.
Where to Find Us
You can find Mission Minded Management under: Work > Careers?– not a perfect fit, but they don’t yet have a section called:? Executive Leadership > Requisite System Design > I’m OK.? You’re OK. Let’s fix the system.? A girl can dream, can’t she?
Filed Under Executive Leadership, Strategy | Comments Off on Read Mission Minded Management on Alltop
Friday Interviewing Fun
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 13, 2008
Here are some questions you might want to mix in during your next interview just to keep the candidate on his toes.
- If you ate a clown, would he taste funny?
- When companies ship Styrofoam, what do they pack it in?
- If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
- When sign makers go on strike, is anything written on their signs?
- When you open a bag of cotton balls, is the top one meant to be thrown away?
- Where do forest rangers go to “get away from it all”?
- Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
- Is it possible to be totally partial?
- Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
- If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their headlights off?
- If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?
- When it rains, why don’t sheep shrink?
- What’s another word for “thesaurus”?
- How can you tell when you run out of invisible ink?
- If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?
- Why is that when you transport something by car, it’s called shipment but when you transport something by ship it’s called cargo?
- If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
- If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
- If it’s 0 degrees today, and?it will?be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?
- What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
- If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
- If Ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?
And last but not least – If I’m OK and you’re OK, why don’t they just fix the system?
Filed Under Employee Engagement, Talent Management | 2 Comments
Hierarchy and Bureaucracy Are Not Synonyms
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 12, 2008
Bureaucracies will always have hierarchies, but not all hierarchies are bureaucratic.
To review from a former post, if an organization has even two layers, it has a hierarchy.? Would you really want to work in an organization with no hierarchy?
No Hierarchy?
- All decisions need be made by vote or consensus ? hiring, firing, strategy, marketing, research investment, vendor selection, who receives personal development opportunities, what the logo looks like, which benefits we offer.
- Everyone is accountable for creating global strategy, answering the phone, cleaning the bathroom, and everything in between.
- Everyone is accountable for all decisions, even ones they vehemently opposed.
- Everyone gets the same pay.
Maybe it?s not hierarchy that is the problem, but rather it is our ignorance surrounding how to structure them to our benefit rather than our detriment.
Consequences of Too Few Levels in a Hierarchy
Yes, there can be too few layers in organizations.? This breeds overwork, ambiguity, and unrealistic expectations.?
Consequences of Too Many Levels in a Hierarchy – Bureaucracy
Yes, there can be too many levels in an organization. ?This causes buck passing, slowed decision making, turf wars, and work overlap.? This breeds frustration, inefficiency and hampered production.? i.e. bureaucracy.
I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.
Filed Under Organization Design, Requisite Organization, Work Levels | Comments Off on Hierarchy and Bureaucracy Are Not Synonyms
Harvard Business Asks – Where Will Management Innovation Take Us?
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 11, 2008
Jim Heskett has posed this question over at Harvard Business Online.
My Comment is Proving of Interest
I’ve posted my comment with a conglomeration of thoughts and links?from Mission Minded Management.? Google Analytics tells me that my comment is bringing international traffic into Mission Minded Management.? The ideas are piquing interest.
Rightful Attribution – Elliott Jaques
I can’t take credit for the origination of the ideas.? They are from Elliott Jaques’ Requisite Organization model.? His ideas?prove innovative when compared to the status quo, but they are not new.?
Jaques’ ideas are like buried treasure that I dig up, one jewel at a time, and wave at readers.? Most can’t help but be struck by their simple elegance.
Elliott Jaques was a man before his time.? Such men rarely befall kindness in their times.? At the heart of everything Elliott did was his concern for human dignity at work and the heartbreaking societal implications of dysfunctional workplaces.
Will You Choose Curiosity or Defensiveness?
His innovative theories and models were not met with curiosity but rather defensiveness.? That is why I made deliberate decision not to mention the model within my Harvard Business comment.?
The model has been misinterpreted, misunderstood, misappropriated, and maligned.? Hence, I was hoping to re-offer the ideas detached from the model name, in the event that the model name carried any baggage for readers.
More Humane Workplaces?
My poem, Organization Design – Seek and Ye Shall Find, was republished on another blog.? The blogger says:? “Half of the time I don?t even understand what she [Michelle Malay Carter]?is talking about, but she sounds like someone with a very humane perspective on management.? And she has mastered ManagementSpeak?.? There is hope yet for the world.”
If someone reads my writing which is rooted in Dr. Jaques’ vision, and it reads as humane, it means my blog is fulfilling its mission.?
I’ve got to believe if I can paint a picture of what work could be?and some insight as to how to get there, character-filled executive leaders?will no longer settle for what is.
Does your organization feel humane or schizophrenic?
Filed Under Corporate Values, Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Organization Design, Requisite Organization | 2 Comments
Operationalizing Engagement via Managerial Leadership
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 10, 2008
Three of Four Employees?Would Leave if They Could?
The most recent Wall Street Journal/Society for Human Resource Management survey reports that as many as 75 percent of your employees are exploring other opportunities.
Consolidated Engagement Study Results?
In “Employee Engagement: A Review of Current Research and Its Implications,” The Conference Board consolidated 12 major studies on employee engagement, which the business research group defined as “a heightened emotional connection that employees feel for their organization that influences them to exert greater discretionary effort to their work.”
It’s About Managerial Leadership
According to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the study found eight engagement drivers.? All the studies found that…
?–the relationship with one’s manager was the strongest driver of all.
Do your systems enable and reinforce your managers’ ability to lead?
- Do you systems provide your managers with the authorities they need to lead?
- Do your systems protect the employee/manager relationship by limiting third-party influences?
- Have you clearly codified the definition of a manager?
- Have you clearly codified the qualifications for being a manager?
- Do your systems ensure employees will be provided a manager who can provide them with proper leadership (i.e. ability to provide greater context) rather than just more experience or tenure?
- Have you trained your managers in matching employees to roles and to spot underutilized employees?
- Does your organizational design reinforce managerial leadership?
- Do managers-once-removed have accountabilities to ensure proper managerial leadership and an appeal venue for employees?
- Do your performance reviews track managerial leadership?
Embedding Engagement?
If your systems undermine, thwart, or ignore managerial leadership, get working!? Effective managerial leadership is your effective means to engagement.? Note:? training is a part of this, but only a small part.
Employee engagement can only become wide-spread, consistent, and sustainable if practices that enable it are embedded within your systems.
The Right Seat at the Table for Human Resource Professionals
Rather than becoming proxy managers themselves, Human Resource Professionals should be concerned with designing systems that reinforce managerial leadership.? Note:? Of the eight engagement drivers discovered, none was found to be?”my relationship with HR”.
I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.
Do your systems enable or thwart managerial leadership?
Filed Under Accountability, Corporate Values, Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Managerial Leadership, Organization Design, Requisite Organization, Talent Management | 2 Comments
Friday Funny Reader Participation Requested
By Michelle Malay Carter on March 7, 2008
:) Dear Readers,
It?has been my practice to offer you a lighter post on Fridays.? I try to step down from my soap box and chill.? This week, I have not found anything that is of?high enough quality to?offer.?? The best I have is a cheesy poem.
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I researched but could not find a
Friday Funny for you.
If you see something you think might be applicable, please send it my way so I won’t come up dry again next Friday.
Filed Under Personal Observation | Comments Off on Friday Funny Reader Participation Requested
Subscribe in a reader