Energy for Outcomes

Internal Duality

Organizational life is about people providing inputs requiring personal energy so as to produce outputs expected to lead to valued outcomes. Participation involves both inputs and outputs.

It was evident in the previous framework that the lower 4 groupings (duties, oversight, improvements, roles) provided organizational outputs around which participation must adjust itself. By contrast, the upper 3 groupings (goals, motivation, commitment) are the staff inputs that reflect and affect the degree and intensity of participation.

7 Groupings/Levels (shown in the diagram) therefore manifest an internal duality, proposed as energy-inputs v outcomes-outputs.

Participation from this perspective is not about doctrines or exhortations or morality, but is based in a plain recognition of responsibility for the work-to-be-done. The justification for having an organization at all is the same justification for paying attention to staff participation and socio-emotional states.

Personal Concerns

Remember: Each of these Level/Centres contains a lot! To remind you what is inside them, review the originating framework.

There are different personal concerns and they revolve around the Centre at the centre: G4-Roles in Functions. These must be designed to enable the conversion of energy to outcomes. Above and below it, there seems to be a standard progression from top to bottom:

• Social or group/value-based.
• Experiential or person/intuition-based.
• Practical or empirically/externally-based.

As a result, the pattern is:

G7: social inputs via commitment.
G3: social outputs via improvements.

G2: experiential outputs via oversight.
G6: experiential inputs via motivation.

G1: practical outputs via duties.
G5: practical inputs via goals

Given this conception of what participation requires of staff, the next step is to identify the tension that spontaneously comes into play when participation actually occurs.

Originally posted: 23-May-2014.