Reading More About Work Levels and You

by Ziko-C. GNU Doc License 1.2

Okay, okay: you have questions. You have no idea what I just said. It was just too confusing. Don’t fret too much: I’ll be continuing to try and explain what I mean and why it’s so important for underachievers. (Because it explains a whole lot.)

If you can’t wait and want to Read More About It, there are several places to look for more information, both online and printed.

I don’t recommend reading Elliott Jaques work, or most of the work done by his colleagues simply because people complain about it being unreadable. I think his General Theory of Bureaucracy is pretty straight-forward but most people disagree.

The GO Society has re-release Wilfred Brown’s incredible film series on management that includes a lengthy discussion of levels of work. If it’s still available, you can have it for the cost of shipping and handling. Leave them a note with your email address saying that you are interested. The US dollar is so weak that I can’t say what the current prices are from their Toronto offices. They also have some interesting articles on their Articles page. Mark Van Clieaf’s articles are well written but definitely about CEO work. Michelle Malay Carter’s articles are easy to understand and clear (also available from PeopleFit). The GO Society also has Wilfred Brown’s books (most of them, anyway) available in PDF for free download.

I especially like Jerry Harvey’s “The Elephant in the Parlor or Who the Devil Is Elliott Jaques?” which is how I discovered all this stuff to begin with.

There are several links in this blog’s sidebar. I haven’t mentioned Andrew Olivier yet, and he is one of the few who is totally concerned with you underachievers, albeit now at a national and regional level. All his articles and his book is highly recommended.

There’s a pretty clear version of work levels at the Project X blog. FYI: “Requisite Organization” just means “the natural organization for humans” and is a term that Elliott Jaques started using in the 1980s.

For a book, I recommend Michael E. Raynor’s The Strategy Paradox: Why committing to success leads to failure (and what to do about it). Raynor says that it’s all about managing uncertainty. Higher level work means that you have to manage more uncertainty. “Making decisions today with the long term in mind is not ‘harder’ than making decisions today with the short term in mind; it is a fundamentally different type of decision.” [107]

Anyone have other suggestions for introductory reading to understand how this stuff applies to your own job?