From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
As I look at Elliott Jaques model organization, I notice that it is a hierarchy. Over the years, I have heard, or been taught, or read articles about how it is important to flatten out the hierarchy, drive decision-making down to the front lines, closer to the customer. It makes sense to me, but Jaques seems to ignore these new flat organizational models.

Response:
Your observations about Elliott Jaques’ high regard for hierarchy is correct. And these new organizational models really aren’t new. The flat organization, for all its well intentioned “new-ness” is the way things were before there was hierarchy.

Why has hierarchy gotten such a bad rap? Likely, the adverse experience comes from poorly run organizations who blamed their tribulations on something they didn’t understand.

Most people see organizational layers as reporting relationships. Who reports to whom? Who is a direct report? An indirect report? A dotted line report? This view lends itself to command and control and the pushback is predictable in today’s business environment.

But Elliott saw things differently. Elliott was a scientist who spent his time observing the way organizations worked, both functional and dysfunctional. He didn’t make up a bunch of warm and fuzzy theories, he just observed, in a scientific way. He gathered data, documented his findings and arrived at principles he found helpful.

Elliott observed, in functional organizations, that each layer had a Time Span orientation distinct from the next and that, if you drew a picture of those layers, from the longest Time Span goals at the top to the shortest Time Span goals at the bottom, you ended up with a picture of hierarchy. If his findings had been a circle, he would have reported it to be a circle, but his findings supported hierarchy.

As he examined each layer, he found that they solved problems differently. And the way they solved problems was directly related to the Time Span of the goals each layer was working on.

The value he found, in this hierarchy, was the capability of each successive layer to assist the next layer down with their problem solving. This capability created a value stream for problem solving and decision making throughout the organization.

Where we get screwed up with all this pushback on hierarchy is that we see hierarchy as a reporting structure. The real power of hierarchy comes from its value stream. Here is the way Elliott saw it:

Every employee is entitled to have a competent manager with the Time Span capability to bring VALUE to their problem solving and their decision making.

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.

I turned to the flipchart, this morning, and drew a picture of a can.

“How big is the can?” I asked. “And how big is the person filling the can?”

There were several guesses from the group here in Cincinnati.

“And, how do you measure the size of the can? How do you measure the person filling the can?” I continued.

Everyone knew exactly what I was talking about. The size of the can is the size of the role. The size of the person describes the capability of the person filling the role.

Leslie Pratch just posted an article about this in the Huffington Post. She provides two specific examples and then describes how to measure the size of the can.

Your thoughts?

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
How do you develop longer Time Span in an individual?

Response:
Elliott Jaques, in his research on Time Span (Requisite Organization), believed that each person has an innate ability to deal with a certain amount of complexity in the world. The complexity can be objectively measured as Time Span and is different for each person.

With that understanding, there is nothing that can be trained, learned, coerced or manipulated to change a person’s maximum capability. It is what it is.

Within that range, up to a person’s maximum capability, we can influence a person’s applied capability. Applied capability creates evidence, observable behavior, goals that are achieved.

We can impact applied capability through education, training, providing opportunity in areas of interest or opportunity where the work has value to the team member. All of these elements will stimulate (without a motivational speaker) a person to bring their highest game to the table.

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I have a basic understanding of Strata and Time Span. My organization has a central office and several small regional offices consisting of a Director, 1- 2 program staff and an office coordinator. The Director’s role requires a Time Span of 12 months with most responsibilities between 1-3 months. The Director’s staff works in Time Spans of days and weeks.

The limited pool of employees makes it difficult to build bench strength to replace a departing director. I can find staff who comfortably cross Strata I and II, but how do I build bench strength or promote from within when I need a Director with Stratum III capability?

Response:
First, we have to calibrate the Time Span required. While many of the tasks (goals) of the Director are shorter than 12 months, if even one of the goals are 12 months, then that’s the capability that you need.

The second thing we have to consider is the time it takes a person to mature from one Stratum to the next. Most managers think about coaching and mentoring programs in terms of months. In reality, for a person to naturally move one full stratum takes 10-13 years. Yes, we progress, but slowly.

Unless you have the luxury to cycle promotions over a ten year period, you have two viable options. This means your strategy of internal promotion is not likely to be responsive to produce Directors within the time frames required.

The first option is to create a Director acquisition program, an incubator that recruits and holds prospective managers until you need them.

Your second option is to redefine the longest Time Span task assignments so they fall more in line with Stratum II. Understand this will redefine the role of Director, but will allow you a larger candidate pool to find successful Directors.

I heard back from Michelle Malay Carter last week about a post we highlighted last week on Time Span. In her response, she posed this dilemma.

“We find that managers, even when they believe the concept is credible, struggle to articulate tasks in Time Span.”

I find the biggest difficulty in understanding Time Span is over-thinking it. Most managers make it way too difficult.

Time Span is simple. It is the Time part of every goal. A goal is a “What, By When?” That’s it. Time Span is the “By When” part. Michelle was correct. Most managers focus on the “What” part of the goal. The “By When” part is often an afterthought. But it is the “By When” that we need to pay attention to. It establishes accountability and calibrates the complexity of the goal.

When you think of the Time Span of any task assignment, just think about the goal, the “What, By When?” and you will have it.

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
When you talked about Time Span in the workshop I attended, you described a person’s maximum capability and how it was important to match their capability with the Time Span of their task assignments. I have a person on my team that, I believe, is not working to their maximum. How can I motivate them to push harder?

Response:
It’s a fair question, but you may be looking for the answer in the wrong place. I am not certain that we, as managers, can motivate anyone to do anything. Elliott Jaques, in his research (Requisite Organization), describes several elements necessary for a person to reach that maximum.

One element, Elliott describes, is interest. Your team member may, indeed, possess the capability, the necessary skills to perform to your expectations, but if they lack the interest, you may be disappointed, as a manager.

What is it that we are interested in? What is it that we have passion for? It is those things in which we place a high value. And yes, we can place high value on the work that we do. If work that we value matches the work that we are doing, then magic happens. It captures our interest, our passion, and we will apply our maximum capability to the task at hand.

As a manager, you cannot motivate a team member, but you can ask questions to find out what work is valued to see how it matches the work they are doing. If it does, watch the magic.

Critical Elements for Success – Elliott Jaques, Requisite Organization
1. Capability (measured in Time Span)
2. Skill (technical knowledge and practiced performance)
3. Interest (work that is valued)
4. Reasonable behaviors required by the role

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question
Identifying Time Span seems to be difficult. How do you make that assessment? How do I know my Time Span?

Response
Everyone has this curiosity. “What’s my Time Span?”

I usually avoid the question, skirt the conversation, redirect, distract, change the subject. But let’s take a stab.

I always start with purpose. What would be the purpose for you to know your own Time Span (capability)? Here is a quick list.

• Am I working to my potential, as a person?
• Am I paying attention to tasks appropriate for my role?
• Am I allowing myself to get trapped in events and circumstances that play against my effectiveness?
• Am I approaching problems and decisions with an eye to long term impact vs. short term comfort?
• When I look to solve a problem, is the quality of the solution improved by thinking further into the future?

These are important questions. How can Time Span help us more clearly understand the answers to these questions? First, answer the questions.

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question
Based on your Time Span workshop, I can now clearly see that one of our Vice-Presidents is not capable in his role. Actually, I knew it all along, everyone knew it all along, but no one would talk about it. Blood relative to the CEO. He has the title, he has the responsibility, he is failing. His behavior is getting more defensive as time passes. What is my next move? I cannot demote the guy, sacred cow.

Response
Family members in the business are always interesting. It’s like Dilbert in real life.

But, just because he is a family member does not make him a bad person. Yet, since you attended the workshop on Time Span, his underperformance is now clearly visible. The workshop gave you a language to describe it and a way to measure it.

Time Span helps you understand the situation, it can also help you resolve the situation. Your goal is to help this young Vice President become a productive, contributing member of the management team.

This is simply a matter of calibration. It is a matter of matching his Time Span task assignments with his capability. It starts with a thorough review of his job description, specifically identifying the Time Span associated with his goals. You know where he is effective and ineffective, and you should see a Time Span pattern emerge like a watershed. Where he is capable, move in more task assignments. Where he is not effective, move out task assignments.

This will redefine expectations around his role, where he is successful. That should stop his defensiveness. From there, create a professional development plan, based on Time Span task assignments that pull him to the limits of his capability. If he is, indeed, heir apparent in some succession plan, you can help him grow toward that.

And don’t worry about his title or the size of his office. Everyone knows he is blood relative to the CEO.