Dome of the Belgian royal greenhouses in Laeken (external). (c) E. Forrest Christian

Requisitely Organize to Build Social Capital at Work

Forrest Christianrequisite organization 7 Comments

Can Elliott Jaques’s theory of Requisite Organization and trust-building hierarchies mesh with Francis Fukuyama’s social capital arguments regarding trust and trust-building within a culture? According to Jaques in the introduction to Requisite Organization: A Total System for Effective Managerial Organization and Managerial Leadership for the 21st Century (1996) the aim of requisite organization theory of management structure is: to develop …

Popularize Requisite Organization By Making Money With It

Forrest Christianrequisite organization 1 Comment

“MAKE MONEY FAST!!!!!” Look, if it works for spammers, maybe Requisite Organization supporters should give it a try. Making money with something is the best way to prove that it works. What requisite organization gives us is not a replacement for management or business skills, but a way to classify that mysterious “leadership” that seems to change the entire equation. …

ADLER typewriter Model n°7 (Frankfurt / Germany). Unknown model date (probably ~1930/40). By Dake

The Natural Argument for Selling Requisite Organization

Forrest Christianrequisite organization Leave a Comment

After reading Harald Solaas’s article, “Why Requisite Organization (RO) Theory Is So Difficult to Understand”, I’m pretty convinced that he’s right: the starting point for describing Requisite Organization is not mental processing — yes, it is pretty cool, even then — but that Requisite Organization represents how people naturally want to organise in hierarchies. Requisite Organization is an emergent function …

Employees at Mid-Continent Refinery [ca. 1943 Tulsa, OK (LOC). By John Vachon]

Clearing Up My Misunderstanding of Requisite Organization (RO)

Forrest Christianrequisite organization, Theory 4 Comments

In order, let’s go over what I think are the truths of Requisite Organization. Some of this comes from a result of reading Solaas’s article (see my other posts for a link) and some from fighting through my own questions. And, yes, I know that TSD is validated and I already have the Craddock bibliography. That wasn’t quite my question …

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Time Span of Discretion Matters, and not Complexity

Forrest Christianrequisite organization, Theory 11 Comments

Time Span of Discretion is what determines the size of the role, and not some measure of “complexity”. Harald Solaas, who wrote a comment to “Does Requisite Organization Really Work Over the Weekend?“, has written an article entitled “Why Is Requisite Organization (RO) Theory So Difficult to Understand?.” In it, he relates the following story about working with Elliot Jaques …

Off shore oil rig by sunset (California). Via photoeverywhere.co.uk

Reality of Jaques’s Theory of “Requisite Organization Works Over A Weekend”

Forrest ChristianChange, Theory Leave a Comment

When I asked earlier about whether Elliott Jaques’s Requisite Organization could really work over a weekend, I was asking a specifically micro-question: Does changing the structure of the organization produce “instant” results in individuals? I got an answer about the macro question I wasn’t asking: Jaques just doesn’t talk about the process by which the change occurs, from old structure …

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Social Capital and Requisite Organization Should Get Married

Forrest ChristianTheory 1 Comment

There’s something missing in Jaques’s Requisite Organization theory, which is described in the ideas of social networks. There is something missing in social network theory that is described in RO theory. Interestingly, both “solutions to the ills of contemporary Western civilization” are socially based, rather than psychological.

Mountains near Château-d'Oex. (c) E. Forrest Christian

Project Portfolios Require High-Level Capability

Forrest ChristianOrganizations, Project Management, Risk Management Leave a Comment

In Waltzing With Bears, Lister and DeMarco describe the benefits of running IT projects within a portfolio. Not every one of them would have to succeed: you could take on several very high-risk (but high-payoff) projects and balance it with several low risk / low payoff projects. Having low-risk/high pay-off projects would be great, but most of the time those …