Affinities & Differences

Methods of managing that share a TET-quadrant have a natural affinity, while those in diagonally opposite quadrants reveal a contrast. Although the contrasting qualities complement each other, personal identification with a method may result in conflict or dissatisfaction in practice.

Affinities within Quadrants

The most obvious affinities are between the two methods within quadrants.

Each quadrant contains a more extreme and a less extreme method, with two versions of the specify outputs method in the lower right. This is shown in the diagram via arrows; and it allows two circles to be drawn containing two contrasting sets.

The outer circle methods are evidently contextual and strategic in nature. The manager stays largely above and away from the mechanics of work. This corresponds to the conceptual construction of reality.

The inner circle methods are about activities and details of work processes related to the desired results. The manager here is necessarily immersed in practicalities of various sorts. This corresponds to the use of information to construe reality.

Within each quadrant, the inner method looks to its related outer method for facilitation and direction:

• Responses (t2)  that handle emerging issues look primarily to how the overall situation is being evolved (t5) to facilitate and justify expedient choices.
• Methods (t3)  look primarily to guidance (t6) to determine priorities for addressing the efficiency and effectiveness of work processes.
• Programs (t4)  are implemented on the basis of parameters as set (t7) within their terms of reference.
• Minimum outputs required (t1_min)  are developed based on judgements of what is optimum and believed feasible (t1_max).

Approach Duality

The 7 methods are also located along two diagonals of the TET. The diagonals define the approach duality and identify two contrasting sets of methods.

Managing via Activation

One diagonal from bottom left to top right includes a set of methods that can be labeled activating. These methods for managing work situations intrinsically stimulate activity and have the potential to generate progress directly.

In moving up the diagonal, the methods increasingly call for creativity as follows:

• Shaping evolution: these interventions are subtle because the aim is to go with the flow and build on what exists.
• Devising responses: the crisis or disruption must be directly addressed, often urgently and often in relation to a hidden cause or a suppressed issue.
• Implementing programs: managing brings people together to cooperate and collaborate in a systematic fashion.
• Setting parameters: the provision of mandates and boundaries liberates imaginative possibilities.

Managing via Constraint

The other diagonal from bottom right to top left includes a set of methods that can be labeled constraining. These methods for managing work situations intrinsically interfere with what you and others might naturally do or prefer—for the benefit of the work itself.

In moving up the diagonal, the methods make increasingly impersonal demands as follows:

• Specify outputs: these interventions depend on you accepting responsibility (and often accompanying accountability) for the outputs, and then allowing that inner responsibility (and external accountability) to govern the way you manage their work.
• Introduce methods: here you and all others involved are brought to agree to procedural rules in regard to tangible work processes so as to enable greater efficiency, ensure legal compliance or generate some other system benefit.
• Impose guidance: the values and objectives that are insisted upon serve as the ultimate justification for all work and are expected to constrain all your choices and subsidiary goals.

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• Explore additional features of the diagonals and quadrants.

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• Consider how all the methods might combine.

Originally posted: 27-Nov-2013