Thanks to Gil Herman for inviting me to spend the day with his Vistage KEY group in Chicago sharing the research of Elliott Jaques. Here is a question from yesterday’s session.

Question:
How do you implement the concepts of Time Span, and the corresponding layers, in an organization where there is very little structure and very few managers. Everyone seems to be doing everything.

Response:
This is a dilemma for most Stratum I and Stratum II organizations. How do you begin to create structure where there is no structure?

This is not a question of implementation. This is a dilemma because it is a decision. Before you can implement, you have to decide, and the decision has to stick, that means commitment.

It’s like being in love. When you are young, you think being in love is a feeling. Later in life, you understand that being in love is a decision. Implementing the principles of Time Span is a decision.

And here are the details of that decision. The choice is to continue to live with the chaos that comes from everyone doing everything. And the reward for free-wheeling chaos is more chaos. The organization will remain, stuck, in its own muck.

The other side of the decision is to change. Stop the chaos, organize roles, define methods, create systems. Easy to say, hard to do. But it all starts with a decision.