I have read with some interest the thread about Elliott Jaques. It's just
too tempting -- I decided to break my lurking habit.
Jaques has been involved with the firm at which I work. We're a young
management and systems consulting firm, with a growing commitment to
(software) products. And Elliott has been highly present in much of our
thinking about the organization, (and physically present in several
internal sessions).
There are many points at which I disagree with Jaques. Three are most
important. First, he is concerned exclusively with "Accountability
Hierarchies", and not at all with what he calls "associations". But a
strict interpretation of the distinction would mean that the vast majority
of organizations are "associations". It's really a question, in my mind,
of whether work is accomplished exclusively through employees (who are not
also shareholders). Many people, in many organizations, depend on others
who do not fall neatly within their organization's boundaries.
Second, Jaques does *not* separately justify any of the points he makes,
certainly not in "Requisite Organization". That poses a major conceptual
challenge. It's impossible, from within Elliott's published framework, to
selectively adopt any of his recommendations. Some of what he says "makes
sense", but not particularly because he says it. When combined with my
first point about the strict domain of applicability of he ideas, it's not
clear that there are many places where his ideas apply, certainly not from
within the framework that he has published.
Third, I'm in profound disagreement with his "one dimensional" view of
man. All of my experience says that people's abilities will vary depending
on the task and context. I find nothing wrong with a colleague who is
sometimes my "boss" on an assignment and sometimes my "subordinate" (on a
different assignment). This flies in the face of Jaques' Strata
conclusions in which people are "born" to think at a certain Strata. That
has not been my experience. And it's a dangerous position to take given
the rapidly changing contexts in which we work.
Those are the nub of my conceptual disagreement with Jaques. His
presentation style, specifically in "Requisite Organization", is
off-putting. Nothing is explained. Nothing is justified. "Thrust me, I'm
the sage who is able to think at Strata XX!" Personally, I found it hard
going to get through what he writes. HBR edited him into somewhat better
shape, and he presents even better in person (but still does not justify
his conclusions).
A final point about his appeal. My guess is that CEO's are deeply
flattered by his framework. They're at an intrinsically higher level,
based on the conceptual abilities with which they are born. And cannot
really explain themselves to people who are lower in the hierarchy (who
don't have the mental ability to understand anyway). It's also "right and
proper" that they by paid much larger sums of money than anyone else in
their organization. All of this feels like a modern version of "divine
right of kings". Not my kind of world.
Robert Fabian
--Robert Fabian <rfabian@interlog.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>