Deciding on an Approach

Empiricists typically observe that in practice, particular issues tend to give rise to the use of a particular approach. Here are some correspondences between issues and approaches:

Directional and design issues and other planning-led activities where competing alternative courses of action are evident lead to the use of rationalist methods.

Search, investigation and technical adaptation problems and other data-dependent or statistics-dependent matters are frequently handled by empiricist methods.

Crises, or opportunities for small improvements with quick pay-offs, invite a pragmatist approach.

Issues involving conflict, such as altering pay or conditions of work or the distribution of benefits or altering group status, tend to be handled dialectically.

Complex situations demanding control, such as comprehensive organizational evaluation or re-inventing the business, lead to the use of a systemic approach.

Issues which are overtly a matter of role or responsibility or which involve maintaining activities reliably within the organization are dealt with by a structuralist (or proceduralist) approach.

Human relations issues, which demand emotional, behavioral or personal changes, give rise to use of the imaginist approach.

Structuralists typically observe that different functions or posts tend to institutionalize different decision approaches and select staff accordingly:

Marketing and service planning — Rationalist
Research — Empiricist
Sales — Pragmatic
Labor relations — Dialectic
Corporate development — Systemic
Administration and finance — Structuralist
Training and OD — Imaginist

These correspondences are not absolute or meant as advice. Often within the one function there are separate sub-functions calling for different work methods.

Structuralists also emphasize the need to decide as pre-specified within the organization. For example, in some organizations people insist on full evidence and documentation (empiricist-style), in others judgments by those in post are taken as authoritative (structuralist-style)

Rationalists typically vary their approach depending on the goal:  e.g.

Redistributive objectives involving planning for the future imply rationalist methods.

Responsive objectives that involve meeting some immediate given need or tackling some active problem imply empiricist methods.

Action objectives that involve demonstrating that something has happened imply pragmatic methods.

Political objectives that involve ensuring that all interest groups are satisfied imply dialectic methods.

Re-invention objectives that revamp whole divisions imply systemicist methods.

Regulative objectives that involve replicating outputs and enforcing standards imply structuralist methods.

Socio-emotional objectives that involve altering attitudes, feelings or perceptions imply the use of imaginist methods.

Imaginists note that each approach is associated with distinctive work-styles that link to personal orientation, qualities of character, and psychological preferences for particular tasks and work processes.

The approaches are therefore not just techniques or tools but the means for self-expression and authenticity.

Imaginists believe that individuals should realize themselves. At one level this means doing what feels right to the person and avoiding artificial or mechanical responses. At a deeper level, it means personal growth, that is to say, moving from full-scale unconscious identification with one approach to exploration of new approaches as new ways of being.

Such identity change is not to be taken lightly: it requires mentoring and sustained personal determination.

Pragmatists ask what can actually be achieved with confidence and ease. The most expedient approach is one that fits with people's personal interests and brings them immediate benefit or at least ensures something happens and protects their position.

Alternatively it is the one that fits with their organization's interests or those of the decider's group or department.

People fall back on the approach that they find most comfortable and convenient, particularly when under stress. Because a person's orientation to the world unselfconsciously reshapes and redefines issues to match it, the pragmatist expects to encounter a variety of approaches in practice, irrespective of their logic.

Dialectical operators are aware that each approach, suitably rationalized, serves as an excellent weapon in the battle for group supremacy. They therefore note how each participant in the issue uses one or other of the approaches to further their own interests or those of the group or organization that they represent.

In the event of no one participant or approach predominating in the decision process, the dialectician will prefer compromise, or may attempt to resolve matters by synthesizing two or more approaches.