Details of the 7 Methods

Because managing is so associated with employment, organizational levels and change, thinking clearly about it can get confused. In what follows, I use personal examples that you can relate to; and also include a note about how the methods look in organizations—again independently of level. You might find the next topic on using consultants with its examples helpful.

Specifying Outputs (QH2-t1)

Essence:  Determining mandatory targets for work efforts.

Rationale: This approach indicates expectations of work, often precisely and quantitatively; and it enables an easy appraisal of performance.

Benefit: Focuses accountability for results.

Example: You commission the re-upholstery of four dining room chairs in leather.

Time-Orientation: Varies with the scope and complexity of what is specified.

Difficulty: The method requires a degree of informed understanding of the work.
Lack of understanding means:   specification may be poor, worker may be incompetent, costs may be excessive, inferior methods may be used, or the output may have non-obvious defects.

In Organizations:

• Effectiveness:  Depends primarily on work-capability of the specifier-manager and the worker(s)-manager(s).
• Work-style: Associated with dialectic-PH'1L4 values.
  Why?  The boss-specifier may have the power to specify, but the subordinate-recipient has the power to agree either fully or half-heartedly or even to walk away. So this is a power-drenched method in which conflict is inherent because judgements are made from opposing perspectives. The presence of power and sanctions for non-performance reduce efforts for deeper engagement.

Devising Responses (QH2-t2)

Essence: Getting appropriate work done to handle emerging issues in a timely way.

Rationale: This approach provides for attention to everything proceeding as it should, while dealing with opportunities and disruptions promptly.

Benefit: Ensures expert resolution.

Example: You deal with a child who is complaining of stomach ache.

Time-Orientation: Varies with the planning horizon.

Difficulty: The method requires availability of sufficient suitable expertise, something that may be difficult to assess in oneself or others.
Lack of expertise means:  you may get an inferior result, and the issue will not get referred on to someone more suitable when that is necessary.

In Organizations:

• Effectiveness: Recruitment and training is the basis for ensuring the presence of professionals and experts. Their effectiveness, however, depends significantly on the quality of the context i.e. frameworks, systems, policies, methods, expectations, culture.
• Work-style: Associated with pragmatic-PH'1L3 values.
  Why?  Responses are typically required in situations where there is a breakdown or deficiency, information is sketchy, and usual procedures are inapplicable or missing. A response that is expert, expedient, simple and direct is desired by everyone.

Introducing Methods (QH2-t3)

Essence: Installing procedures and tools that systematically enable and control a particular set of work processes.

Rationale: This approach ensures the meshing of staff and the smoothness of workflow; and it prevents &/or handles predictable crises.

Benefit: Provides order in making repetitive choices.

Example: You manage your health by instituting a fitness regime.

Time-Orientation: Enduring.

Difficulty: The method requires continuous personal discipline to use the specific tools and follow tailored rules and arrangements as prescribed.
Lack of discipline means:  you will expend effort and resources without getting the desired benefits.

In Organizations:

• Effectiveness depends on previous experience with the method, both personal and by others, and ongoing monitoring and modification of arrangements as situations evolve.
• Work-style: Associated with proceduralist/structuralist-PH'1L6 values.
  Why?   Situations and work-flows must be analysed and structured in a useful, realistic way so procedures can be defined. Both use of methods and insistence on their use by others require control-oriented attitudes, and a preference for system and order rather than a laissez-faire mentality with regular fire-fighting.

Implementing Programs (QH2-t4)

Essence: Planning and organising work to deliver a specific result within the resources allocated in an agreed time.

Rationale: This approach is about working jointly to an agreed goal, and it emphasizes the proper use of resources including time.

Benefit: Directs and controls resource usage via information.

Example: You manage the refurbishment of your house via redecoration, refitting the kitchen and modern lighting throughout.

Time-Orientation: According to an agreed schedule.

Difficulty: The method is inherently complex due to the multiple services and systems, the cost of a wide variety of resources, and the large amount of relevant information.
Mishandling the complexity means:  you won't control costs, you will miss deadlines, you will end up with service clashes, and there may be drift in the original goals.

In Organizations:

• Effectiveness depends on operating in a well-understood situation, preparing detailed control documentation with milestones, ensuring continuous monitoring and analysis of pertinent information, and arranging regular steering by a higher authority.
• Work-style: Associated with Empiricist-PH'1L2 values.
  Why?  Programs typically aim to generate certainty about development through the use of information. Goals are given in the terms of reference and guidance, and what are then needed are systematic evidence-supported choices and continuous feedback that together ensure confident control over each step.

Shaping Evolution (QH2-t5)

Essence: Adjusting inputs, tasks and expectations while going with the flow.

Rationale: This approach is about shaping the evolution of the situation by appropriate interventions. It recognizes the need to integrate disparate efforts and respond to diverse forces.

Benefit: Uses natural interactions and momentum to deliver an acceptable outcome.

Example: You look after a large garden, which involves continuously adjusting to: variable growth of flowers shrubs and trees, the effects of weather, existing and new pests, soil variations, plant interactions and availability of expert assistance.

Time-Orientation: Continuous present generating an emerging future.

Difficulty: Flexible acceptance of uncontrollable factors and uncertainties that generate the potential for diverse evolutionary trajectories.
Inflexibility means:  fighting the flow, which exhausts strength, wastes resources and demotivates, while simultaneously resulting in a neglect of new opportunities.

In Organizations:

• Effectiveness depends on keeping the desired goals in mind while immersing in the practicalities, and engaging with wider issues.
• Work-style: Associated with Systemicist-PH'1L7 values.
  Why?  In order to intervene usefully, the manager must have a conception of the situation, and understand the variety of forces, factors, interactions and pressures that are in play. Thoughtful reflection from a holistic perspective can then lead to choices that together constitute a strategy.

Imposing Guidance (QH2-t6)

Essence: Setting priorities and the desired overall outcomes.

Rationale: This approach allows the manager to maintain distance from activities, and disconnection from details of process and specific outputs, whilst still indicating what is most important.

Benefit: Provides the big picture of what it is all for.

Example: You commission and fund a local agent to look after the safe upkeep of a property in another country without disturbing you, and you check its condition and all expenses on your annual visit.

Time-Orientation: Rate and quality of progress.

Difficulty: The method demands a sharing of values so that judgements about activities that are performed are generally acceptable.
Conflicting values means:  priorities will be ignored, objectives will be distorted by private interests, expedient choices will violate the guidance.

In Organizations:

• Effectiveness depends on a well-understood and well-structured situation where consultation is possible, information is available, and collegiality or team-spirit can be developed or taken for granted.
• This is how a Governing Body manages a whole organization: and so a Board desirably includes the Chief Executive, Chief Financial Officer, and possibly one or two other top executives as well as independent members.
• Work-style: Associated with Rationalist-PH'1L1 values.
  Why?  Priorities and strategic objectives, which are the basis of all guidance, depend on a belief in the importance of shared purpose for any significant achievement.

Setting Parameters (QH2-t7)

Essence: Assigning a mandate with terms of reference.

Rationale: This approach specifies boundaries governing choices and provides unifying reference points (values, needs, limits, rules) for those involved.

Benefit: Provides sufficient freedom to allow creative initiative.

Example: You manage assets by giving an investment manager funds with the instruction to produce the best possible returns subject to various restrictions on type of investment (e.g. no structured products), allocation weights (e.g. no more than 50% in equities, no more than 2% in any individual stock), and jurisdictions (e.g. no investments in the USA).

Time-Orientation: Present and indefinite future.

Difficulty: The method demands sufficient trust to activate autonomy and release creativity.
Absence of trust means:  interference and micro-managing will disrupt the work situation and spoil creative processes.

In Organizations:

• Effectiveness depends on the degree of commitment of the leader and the degree of enthusiastic support for the mandate by those given the assignment.
• Work-style: Associated with Imaginist-PH'1L7 values.
  Why?  Parameters allow for even more distance and disconnection from activities than guidance-t6. Once a basic knowledge is obtained, the mandate is primarily a matter of intuition which is supported by a vision of what could and should be possible.

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• Apply this to the use of consultants. If you seek a consultant to assist in managing, you will find that they all sell you a method i.e. these THEE methods. Accordingly, if you want to become a consultant, then find your method!

  OR

• Having identified the methods, it is useful to compare and contrast them further with a Typology Essentials Table.

Originally posted: 27-Nov-2013