Thanks to Arne for his comment Tuesday. The discussion was in response to an inquiry of the source for the descriptive term Strata in relation to various roles in the organization. I have been working extensively with Elliott Jaques research for the past five years. Arne’s experience, however, was not altogether positive
The work of Jacques appears to most at the outset as interesting and logical.
It becomes more troubling as one reads his entire book (page pairs and all) and you realize some of the more subversive themes to his work. Notably that individuals have a natural maximum stratum that they are capable at working – and this stratus maximus is determined during their childhood. If a worker, say deemed as a Stratum II worker bee, then in an organization that follows this discipline naturally would not promote them further than this.
Arne, I would certainly agree that Jaques work is controversial but would never characterize it as subversive. I think more accurately, the implementation made by your company may have been misguided. It is very easy to misinterpret Jaques.
He did, indeed, believe that each person has a maximum capability to handle complex tasks in a given role, just as we are all genetically determined to grow to a certain height. At my height, I will never become an effective NBA basketball player. No matter how many toe stretches I do or how much training I may get, I will never make it on that court.
Maximum capability is a bit more difficult to detect. But the practice you describe, slotting a person in Strata II for the balance of their life, is precisely the wrong managerial practice. The Requisite managerial practice would be to continually test the individual with longer time span assignments until they reach the point at which they fail. That failure would indicate, at that moment, there is evidence that maximum capability was exceeded. The Requisite managerial practice would then be to shorten the time span assignment back to where the person was successful. Then wait.
Wait perhaps, three months, then test the person again with a longer time span assignment. This process should be repeated, continually challenging a person to reach their highest level of capability throughout their career.
In your experience, it is possible that this practice was not clearly understood or miscommunicated. It is always the job of the manager to constantly challenge team members to their highest levels of performance.
Gotta go practice my free throws, Dwayne Wade is on the phone. -TF
Tour de France Update
It was the first day in the Pyranees, the first mountain stage and things got weird. With many of the major contenders disqualified or out of the race, distant riders are taking chances and dicing things up.
Who is Cyril Dessel (FRA-A2R)? Well, he formed an early breakaway today that succeeded and he ended up, not only with the yellow jersey, but with the polka-dot King of the Mountain jersey as well. Juan Miguel Mercado (ESP-AGR) was the stage winner, but it was not enough to knock out Dessel.
Sergiy Gonchar (UKR-TMO) had predictable trouble when he hit the mountains. Big gears and mountains don’t go well together. Floyd Landis (USA-PHO) was content to let the opportunists notch him down to fifth place, hoping they will not be able to sustain successive back to back efforts.
Team Discovery’s Paolo Salvodelli (ITA-DSC) trails Landis by 1min 10sec and may be USAs only hope for a podium finish. George Hincapie (USA-DSC) drops to 19th place, two minutes behind Landis. Tomorrow is another rough day in the Pyranees.
Overall Standings after Stage Ten
1-DESSEL, Cyril -FRA-A2R -43hrs 7min 5sec
2-MERCADO, Juan Miguel -ESP-AGR –+2min 34sec
3-HONCHAR, Serhiy -UKR-TMO –+3min 45sec
4-MORENI, Cristian -ITA-COF –+3min 51sec
5-LANDIS, Floyd -USA-PHO –+4min 45sec
6-ROGERS, Michael -AUS-TMO –+4min 53sec
7-LANDALUZE, Inigo -ESP-EUS –+5min 22sec
8-SINKEWITZ, Patrik -GER-TMO –+5min 30sec
9-KLÖDEN, Andréas -GER-TMO –+5min 35sec
10-KARPETS, Vladimir -RUS-CEI –+5min 37sec
11-EVANS, Cadel -AUS-DVL –+5min 37sec
12-ZABRISKIE, David -USA-CSC –+5min 38sec
13-FOTHEN, Marcus -GER-GST –+5min 48sec
14-MOREAU, Christophe -FRA-A2R –+5min 52sec
15-SAVOLDELLI, Paolo -ITA-DSC –+5min 55sec
16-MENCHOV, Denis -RUS-RAB –+5min 58sec
17-KESSLER, Matthias -GER-TMO –+6min 1sec
18-SASTRE, Carlos -ESP-CSC –+6min 12sec
19-HINCAPIE, George -USA-DSC –+6min 15sec
20-PEREIRO SIO, Oscar -ESP-CEI –+6min 42sec
I can’t be sure but you’re probably taller than 5-3. Muggsy Bogues who played in NBA past whole nineties is just as tall and if you call him uneffective player it wouldn’t be fair.
To be honest I really like your example with the NBA player. Muggsy Bogues shows that even Strata II worker bee whose maximum capability looks limited can achieve great things.
And one more thing – limitations in vast majority of cases are inside us. Tom won’t be probably NBA-level basketballer, but for sure he could play better. The same with the worker bee – maybe he won’t be another Bill Gates, but he can push some of his limitations for sure.