Vertical Authority and Accountability

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What is the relationship between two people who are required to work together? Organizational structure is the way we define that working relationship with respect to accountability and authority. And, there are two types. One vertical and one horizontal.

Vertical relationships, we understand pretty easily. These are managerial relationships, with a manager and a team member. Between the two, accountability and authority are assumptive. The manager has the authority to determine what work needs to be done, how that work is done, how its output will be measured (pace and quality). The manager has the authority to make decisions and solve problems, simultaneous with the accountability for that output.

This is not a power dynamic based on a power hierarchy. This is a competence dynamic based on a competence hierarchy. It is the intelligent manager, with the authority to make decisions, who has the accountability to determine all the variables around that decision. That includes data collection, asking questions and listening to feedback from the team. Woe is the manager who fails to consider these variables in the face of a decision. For it is the manager who will be held to account for the consequences of that decision.

That’s how competence hierarchies work.

Accountability and Authority

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I made sly reference to these two concepts last week. Accountability and authority. These are inseparable.

To be accountable for an output, one must have the authority to determine the variables around that output. Do not hamstring a team member by handing them accountability without the authority to control variables. Bifurcating the two leads to well articulated excuses and blaming behavior.

Simultaneously, do not give someone the authority to control variables without the concomitant accountability. Government oversight committees are famous for wanting to have all the authority without accountability.

These two concepts go hand in glove, not either-or, but AND-and.

Fixing Accountability

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Elliott Jaques’ framework gets to the heart of work. In the pursuit of any worthy goal, work is – making decisions and solving problems. As time goes by, headcount increases and soon we have an organization, with organizational problems. Who makes the decisions? Who is accountable for those decisions? Who decides methodology, problem solving? Who is accountable for solving the problem?

Finger pointing and blaming behavior are not quirks of personality. They are symptoms of an organization that failed to define accountability and authority. Who is accountable?

I had a client in the carpet cleaning business. Every once in a while, thank goodness only every once in a while, a carpet technician would ruin a customer’s carpet. Who did my client want to choke up against the wall?

Elliott assumed that carpet technician showed up for work that day with the full intention to do their best. It is the manager Elliott would hold accountable for output.

Elliott assumed the manager hired the carpet technician, trained the technician, provided the tools for the technician, coached the technician, selected the project for the technician. The manager controlled all the variables around that technician. It is the manager that Elliott would hold accountable for output.

We typically place accountability one level of work too low in the framework. It’s the manager who is accountable.

The Lynchpin in the Framework

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Could it have anything to do with time?

Order is what we know. Chaos is what we don’t know. Most people talk about the past, up to the present time. It is tangible and concrete. By studying the patterns and trends of the past, we can forecast the future, with some reliability. At least for a day. After two days, that reliability begins to break down and by the time a week is passed, reliability becomes a crapshoot with probabilities and margins for error.

The leader is not the person who can best predict. The leader is the person who is comfortable with and can effectively adapt to the uncertainty of the future. The lynchpin in organizational structure is timespan.

Discretion is about decision making. The timespan of discretion defines the uncertainty in a role. We reserve certain decisions for certain roles based on timespan. Timespan helps us understand specific levels of decision making. And there is appropriate decision making at every level of work.

  • S-I – appropriate decision making from 1 day to 3 months
  • S-II – appropriate decision making from 3 months to 12 months
  • S-III – appropriate decision making from 1 year to 2 years
  • S-IV – appropriate decision making from 2 years to 5 years
  • S-V – appropriate decision making from 5 years to 10 years

Timespan helps us understand specific levels of problem solving. And there is appropriate problem solving at every level of work.

  • S-I – effective problem solving using trial and error
  • S-II – effective problem solving using documented processes and best practices
  • S-III – effective problem solving using root cause analysis
  • S-IV – effective problem solving using multi-system analysis
  • S-V – effective problem solving using internal system and external system analysis

Timespan is the lynchpin that defines the framework for organizational structure. It provides guidance to the complexity of the work. It provides guidance on who should make which decisions. Timespan provides guidance of who should be whose manager.

Most importantly, timespan structures the value stream necessary for a hierarchy of competence. This hierarchy of competence defines accountability and authority. Elliott describes this as a management accountability hierarchy (MAH).

After Midnight

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Elliott Jaques was a Canadian born psychologist, scientist, researcher, practitioner who focused on organizational structure. Through the course of his research, he discovered the lynchpin. You would think the discovery would have been in the hallowed halls of a research library, or standing beside a chalkboard of mathematical equations. But it had more to do with a knock on the door after midnight with a small group of addled shop stewards who had consumed one too many pints.

Order and chaos. Order is what we know, chaos is what we don’t know. We know the past, at least our perception of the past, all the way up to the present time. But, once we move through the present time into the future, uncertainty creeps in, ambiguity tiptoes in the shadows. Chaos lives in the future. And the further into the future, the more chaos there is, uncertainty, ambiguity.

“Elliott, Elliott. Wake up Elliott. We think we found it.”

“Found what? It’s after midnight and you guys have been drinking.”

“Elliott, Elliott. Could it have anything to do with time?”

“Guys, can’t we pick this up in the morning? It’s late.”

“No, Elliott. Could it have anything to do with time? You know, the guys on the shop floor, they get paid by the hour. Their supervisors, they get paid by the week. And the managers, well, the managers get paid by the month and the vice presidents, their compensation is stated in terms of a year. Could it have anything to do with time?

“The guys on the shop floor, they are accountable for things happening on a day to day basis. Their supervisors are accountable for scheduling and lead times for the next week or a month. Their managers are accountable for annual plans and targets. The vice presidents are accountable for the longest projects, more than a year.  Could the lynchpin we are looking for in organizational structure be all about time?”

And they never looked back.

Dilemmas in the Construction of Hierarchy

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With a group of competent people assembled in the same room at the same time, now what? Why organize, how to organize?

Without a why, there will be no coordinated effort toward anything. Most organization founders begin with a personal why, a defined mission and that’s the beginning. The mission may shift over time based on market conditions, maturation of the CEO or maturation of the organization.

How to Organize?
With a defined mission, someone still has to decide what to do, sequence of what to do and resources required to do. In the beginning, it’s the founder. As the organization grows, decisions are distributed from the founder to others. But to whom? And with what authority? We now have a hierarchy, intentionally or by default, based on some value. The nature of that value will determine the nature of the hierarchy and determine its energy flow. Organizations get to pick that value. If the value is power, we create a power hierarchy, not sustainable.

If we create a competence hierarchy, decisions made about what to do, sequence and resources can now be based on competence. The proper distribution of decision making and problem solving goes to those roles the organization identifies as requiring the most competence.

Degrees of competence determine which roles make which decisions. If we draw this on a piece of paper, this is organizational structure. But, what is the design criteria for competence? How do we determine, or consider who may be more competent than another? In a competence hierarchy, we certainly contemplate that we are going to have more than one competent person, so who gets which decision?

These questions determine how we divide up the work, who will have the authority for which decisions and who will be accountable for the outcome of those decisions. At some point, we run into conflict. The conflict may be about the priority of a resource, priority in a sequence or if a task needs to be completed at all. If there are layers of decisions, how many layers? Who decides?

This seems like a ton of questions to answer, and the questions keep coming. How do we define the working relationships between people and keep it all straight? What is the framework to guide us? What are the metrics in that framework?

We started with chaos and order. How do we examine the chaos to find the lynchpin that brings order to the organization? I am a structure guy. If you get your structure right, your issues related to motivation and management largely go away. What’s the lynchpin?

Integrated Competence

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To create a hierarchy of competence, we have to understand the nature of competence. “I will know it when I see it” is not really helpful. Elliott defined these four things as absolute requirements for success in a role, any role, no matter the discipline.

  • Capability
  • Skill
  • Interest, passion
  • Required behaviors

Competence is the integration of these four factors. If we want to build a hierarchy of competence, we have to understand each and what that integration looks like.

Capability and Skill
Competence is a combination of Capability and Skill. If I do not have the capability for the work, no amount of skills training (technical knowledge and practice) will be helpful. And, if I don’t have the skill, you will never see my capability. Competence is a combination of both.

Interest and Passion
Interest and passion for the work will influence the amount of time for practice. The more interested I am, the more time I will spend in practice. And if I don’t practice a skill, the skill goes away, competence goes away. Practice arrives with many qualities, frequency of practice, duration of practice, depth of practice, accuracy of practice.

Required Behaviors
Something as simple as showing up for work on time is a required behavior. I may have the capability, skill and passion, but if I don’t show up for work, competence is invisible.

Desperately Seeking Competence
Building a competence hierarchy begins at the individual level.  It’s a basic building block. Competence must be identified, selected, developed, improved and practiced. For competence to flourish, it must be placed within a hierarchy where the value, the energy and the flow is based on competence.

Flow in a Hierarchy

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Hierarchies are naturally created as a sorting process using a defined value. If the value is power, it’s a power hierarchy. If the value is command, it’s a command hierarchy. If the value is control, it’s a control hierarchy. If the value is competence, it’s a competence hierarchy.

Flow
In a power hierarchy, energy flows from those with the power. Authority is assigned to those with the power. Decisions are made by the person in power. Problems are solved by the person in power. Critics of hierarchy likely have this value stream in mind and complain about top down, command and control. It’s not a bad argument, but their angst is directed toward hierarchy, not power.

What’s so bad about a power hierarchy? There are a number of problems. First is organizational speed. If all decisions have to made by those with the power, the speed of decision making will slow down or stop. If all problems have to be solved by those with power, the speed of problem solving will slow down or stop.

If decisions require local knowledge about the subject at hand, those with power must stop to learn the local knowledge. If decisions require technical expertise, those with power must stop to learn the technical expertise. The decision slows down.

If the power hierarchy vests power in those who have the power (circular reference with a purpose), how do those in power remain in power? The only basis for remaining in power is by edict, corruption or tyranny. The justification resembles the parent response, “Because I said so.”

The initial response from a child is obedience because the child is dependent on the parent, but the impact on the psyche of the child is none too positive. “Because I said so,” eventually creates counterproductive sandbagging, passive aggressive behavior, outright defiance. The endgame for the child is to create a condition of independence and leave the family, sometimes not so amicably.

The impact in a power hierarchy is that team members will seek to become the person in power or they will leave. Except for those employees who remain dependent on the structure for their own survival.

Those who seek power in a power hierarchy will use whatever means to gain that power, which may include intimidation, tight control, harboring knowledge and deception. Those who leave create a turnover statistic which eventually gets noticed by HR. And those who stay, because they have no other option, will behave in all manner to remain in the good graces of those in power. None of these scenarios create the culture of a thriving, forward looking, innovative organization.

But, what if the value in the organizational hierarchy was one of competence? A hierarchy of competence.

Water Flows Downhill

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It’s a plumbing analogy, but demonstrates a law of physics.

Hierarchy is a value sorting process to bring order to the chaos of the world, order being what we know, chaos being what we don’t know.
Hierarchy, in a functional organization, is a value stream characterized by competence. We build the organization based on the competence required in the roles in our design. A visual picture of our design, on a piece of paper, looks like our organizational chart, our organizational structure.

Organizational structure is the way we define the working relationships between roles, related to accountability and authority. The way we define the value in the hierarchy determines the energy flow and whether that organization is functional or dysfunctional.

If the value is power, the organization will be a hierarchy of power and its energy will flow based on power. If the value is command, the organization will be a hierarchy of command and its energy will flow based on command. If the value is control, the organization will be a hierarchy of control and its energy will flow based on control.

And, if the value is competence, the organization will be a hierarchy of competence and its energy will flow based on competence.

Water still flows downhill. 

Chain of Value

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Chaos and order. The purpose of organizational hierarchy is to bring order in the pursuit of a defined goal. Often we misunderstand hierarchy, some define it as a chain of command. In a functional hierarchy, it is not a chain of command, it is a chain of value. That value being competence. Hierarchy is not a chain of power, it is a chain of authority.

Authority and power are quite different. It has been well established that a parent has the authority to tell a child to eat their broccoli, but it is the child who has the power to determine if broccoli will, in fact, be eaten.

In a functional organization, authority comes with accountability. A role with authority also assumes accountability. Only in a government oversight committee is authority assumed without accountability (It is a broken power chain, ultimately, the committee’s authority is also broken.)

In a functional hierarchy, the value chain is competence. Authority comes with accountability. Organizational structure is the way we define working relationships related to authority and accountability. A manager may be granted the role authority to make a specific decision, and simultaneously is granted the role accountability for that decision.