Preview of Findings

Summary of Functions

The Groupings and their Groups are ways to integrate work and overcome the differentiation and discontinuity demanded by the hierarchical stratification of duties.

The full picture can be seen in the review section. Here is a summary of what will be analysed and explained in the Topics to follow:

G1: 7 Monads (1 Level per Group) divide up work to permit its responsible performance. Clarity about duties prescribed for any staff member enables management control.
G2: 6 Dyads (2 adjacent Levels per Group) integrate both the overall view and particular details in handling situations. Given good communication, ensuring oversight provides for appropriate handling of situations. This is the basis for management cooperation.
G3: 5 Triads (3 adjacent Levels per Group) integrate needs for the most radical remodelling with needs for operational stability. Improvements need to be coherently introduced without undue disruption to work-flows or existing change initiatives. Here is the focus for intelligent management dynamism.
G4: 4 Tetrads (4 adjacent Levels per Group) integrate standardized expert functions from the most concrete and special to the most general. Roles are designed so that activities are demarcated, owned and expertly handled by professionalized staff. This provides for management competence.
G5: 3 Pentads (5 adjacent Levels per Group) integrate pursuit of the mission with the provision of resources and operational exigencies. Setting goals realistically enables staff to position themselves for the desired achievement. Confidence emerges here from management consensus.
G6: 2 Hexads (6 adjacent Levels per Group) integrate leading and following within management. It is expected that staff 's personal motivations will flow from the obligations of employment, and this conformance is an expression of management morale.
G7: 1 Heptad (7 adjacent Levels per Group) integrates all staff as committed members of the organization. This ensures that employees are aware of the totality of work-to-be-done and identify with the values of the organization. The result is management credibility.

Summary of Practical Implications

Given the large number of phenomena to be covered, it is well to appreciate in advance the numerous practical implications of this framework. In most organizations, there is only a patchy awareness of what is required and why. The relevant Topics provide more detail.

The first four Groupings provide the building blocks for management:

G1-Duties reiterates that assigning responsibility to get control of any issue involves distinguishing progressively wider perspectives. This was previously noted in relation to structuring the organization.

G2-Oversight reveals that managing situations depends on the cooperation that comes from ensuring regular briefings, feedback, zooming and consultations between staff at adjacent Levels. It clarifies the necessity for meetings in teams and one-on-one, genuine dialogue, and line-and-staff relationships.

G3-Improvement requires the rarely-mentioned need to deal with the necessity for change via an extended management team. Managerial meetings that extend over three Levels ensure a dynamism and drive that deals with obstacles and resistances. This prevents chaotic implementation that fails to recognise that all change is co-evolution.

G4-Roles must be designed with adequate standards of competence and expertise in mind. Staff with identical or related disciplinary training should be welded into discrete functions over four Levels. The power issues that result can be handled in part by dual-influence authority relations.

The final three Groupings ensure the building blocks serve the organization:

G7-Commitment must be enabled on the basis of an equality amongst employees as members of an organizational community. Attention must be given to formal and informal arrangements that communicate and support relevant values. Management gets credibility when staff are fully committed.

G6-Motivation must be expected from all staff as part of their contractual obligations. This is revealed by a display of leadership and a readiness to follow according to norms. Except at the very top and bottom, staff must maintain morale by doing both simultaneously i.e. lead by following and follow by leading.

G5-Goals have to be determined using a mission-oriented planning system, necessary activities and appropriate resources. Achievement depends on work integration across boundaries (functional and others) and inputs from many Levels. If goals are realistic, a strong consensus should be possible.

Schema for Exposition of Groupings

In describing each of the Groupings, I will initially explain why it exists in terms of what comes before, and propose formal names for the Grouping and its Groups. Then I will identify:

Function: The unique purpose of the Grouping and hence of each of the Groups.

Quality: The qualifier that characterizes how the function is to be performed in an organizational setting.

Integration within: How the Levels within each Group in the Grouping are bound together. This will not apply to G1.

Integration across: How all Groups in the Grouping together ensure coherence and comprehensiveness in organizational functioning. This will not apply to G7.

Psychological Correlate: The aspect of non-organizational personal functioning that the Grouping taps into, requires or activates.

Personal Tension: An inner conflict that is unavoidably generated within organizations by the Grouping.

Social Correlate: The aspect of non-organizational social functioning that the Grouping taps into, requires or activates.

Organisational Tension: A conflict within work or management that unavoidably results from the Grouping.

Practical Implications: What management should especially consider and handle for best results.

In G2 to G6, there is a more detailed Topic, where the internal structure of each Group is formulated.

Originally posted: 19-Mar-2014