Glossary

Accountability: A component of a work relationship between two people wherein one accepts the requirement to provide an account to the other of the following three questions relating to work.

The most common application of the concept of accountability is that which applies as a function of a contract of employment within an organisation and though in our experience this requirement to accept accountability is rarely articulated clearly in the contract; it should be. An effective accountability discussion includes a discussion of the three questions above including how and why the person used particular processes to turn inputs into required outputs.

Accountability is not a collective noun for tasks, as in ‘ your accountabilities are …’. Too often this is used in employment, contracts and in role descriptions, which confuses work and accountability. A role may describe work but we are still to discover if the person is actually held to account for that work.

Accountability as a concept applying within coherent social groups is brought to the fore for society in general by the process of the courts wherein people in the witness box are required to answer, in public, questions as to what, how and why something was, or was not, done and judgement is passed as an outcome of this process.

Application: The effort, attention and energy that a person puts into applying the other elements of capability to their work (see Kolbe, 1990).

Association: People coming together for a purpose. The purpose is either agreed tacitly or expressed in a written document (Brown, 1971: 48).

Authority: ‘The right, given by constitution, law, role description or mutual agreement for one person to require another person to act in a prescribed way (specified in the document or agreement). The likelihood of exercising authority effectively will usually depend upon good Social Process Skills’.

The acceptance of the exercise of authority within a work organisation is a function of the contract of employment.

Is it essential that there is a clear understanding of the difference between authority and power (see below) and that authority is not a one-way process. In a correctly functioning organisation, for example, a manager has the authority to assign tasks to a direct report and the direct report has the authority to require a task performance review by the manager.

Authority and Power: Person A has authority or power in relation to person B when person A is able to have person B behave as A directs.

If person B does not so behave neither authority nor power applies.

Authority applies within the boundary and constraints of the law, policy and rules of the organisation and those of accepted social custom and practice.

Power breaches one or more of these constraints to authority.

Clarity of understanding of the constraints to authority and its correct distribution to the roles within an organisation is essential for speed of reaction to the unexpected.

Within society at large an acceptance of the exercise of authority is essential to maintain social cohesion; however, there is a sharply attuned recognition within societies of the constraints that apply to that authority and an exercise of power by ‘appointed authority’ is strongly resented.

Authority (resource): The ability of a role incumbent to apply resources to a task without reference to another person.

Capability:

•knowledge

•technical skills

•social process skills

•mental processing ability

•application – desire, energy and drive applied to work

Chaos: The patterns of complexity and the multiple scales of complexity that are now being studied as part of a general theory of chaos (see Gleick, 1987; 2008; Strogatz, 2014). This is not random disorder. Classical science and much theory of organisation has searched for ordered linear patterns that allow prediction: if this, then that.

Chaos theory studies non-linear patterns where the relationships are not simple and linear, prediction of the outcomes with any accuracy becomes more and more difficult over time.

Minute differences in initial conditions have profound effects into the future. Most natural systems are chaotic in their functioning.

Chaos theory forces us to confront the fact that no matter how much experience we have and how well we understand the present, the predictions we make about the future will become progressively less accurate as they extend forward in time. Our mental processing ability is the facility to make order of this chaos, to perceive the universe and to ‘discover’ or ‘create’ the patterns (order) which we can then use as we take action.

Constraints (for a task): Limitations within which a task must be completed. It is the work of the task assigner to articulate these constraints to the task doer and confirm they are understood.

Context (of a task): The situation in which the task assigner predicts the task will be performed, including the background conditions, the relationship of this task to other tasks and any unusual factors to be taken into account.

When the task performance is being reviewed the actual context needs to be considered in the review.

Critical Issue: Something that if not satisfactorily resolved threatens the achievement of the purpose of the work of an individual, team or organisation. ‘What if this happens, how will we address it?’

Culture: A culture is a group of people who share a common set of mythologies.

The group may be very large or relatively small and the strength of the culture will be determined by the number of mythologies that are common to the group.

It is normal for there to be smaller common interest groups within a large cultural group and these are often referred to as sub cultures.

The commonality of the mythologies causes all the members of a culture to ascribe the same value assessment to a system, symbol or behaviour that they experience, be that assessment positive or negative.

The process of changing or creating a culture requires the generation of new mythologies that are common to the group.

Dissonance: A state of mind generated by the clear failure of a prediction that has been based upon a strongly held belief.

Dissonance can be generated by the behaviour of another person or group, the activity of a system or the appearance of a symbol.

Because we need to be able to predict with reasonable accuracy to be and feel safe, dissonance generates anxiety and the need to formulate an explanation. The generation of dissonance is the first step in the process of formation of new mythologies.

Employment Charter: A written document to clarify the conditions and mutual behaviours which each member of the organisation is authorised and entitled to expect so that he or she may experience a constructive, productive and safe work environment which encourages people to work to their potential’.

Employment Hierarchy: The network of employment roles set up by an association of people to carry out work required to achieve the objectives of the association’ (Brown, 1971: 49).

Fair Treatment System: A system designed and implemented by the leadership of an organisation that applies to all members of the organisation. The purpose of the system is to provide for a non-biased assessment and judgement on decisions or work place behaviours that are perceived to be unfair by a person who is a member of the organisation.

The fair treatment system functions internally to the organisation and its use is preferred prior to any appeal for judgement from outside the organisation.

Hierarchy: An organisation structure wherein the authority available to a role increases upwards through the structure, increasing as work complexity increases.

The authority structure of the organisation is made visible and accessible by means of role titles. In a correctly structured organisation each role has the authority that is necessary to perform the work assigned to the role and this provides the connection between role authority and work.

Human Decision-Making Model:

Influence: Activity that attempts to have an effect on the behaviour, or beliefs of another individual or group.

Knowledge: That array of facts and relationships that an individual has available to him or her for the performance of work, it may be part or all of an accepted body of knowledge, or knowledge that has been produced as largely self-generated content by the individual.

Knowledge Field: The knowledge held by an individual about a specific subject. The knowledge will be gained from a range of sources from personal experience to formal study.

This is the knowledge which a person brings to their work in an endeavour to solve problems that seem to relate to that particular field. Should they appreciate the need to do so, additional knowledge may be sought to resolve a work problem and any knowledge gained then becomes part of that field.

Each person has unique knowledge fields as they are what he or she has built up through life to date about a particular subject. There will be a core of knowledge in each field that is common to most people in a cultural group with similar educational experiences.

Language – Social and Scientific Meanings:

Scientific meaning: A precisely defined term with deliberately clear boundaries for the purpose of explaining relationships and testing hypotheses: ‘This is what I mean’. An entity or term has a clearly defined meaning by which we can determine whether an entity is ‘one of those’ or not.

Social meaning: A term which is assumed to provide a similarity of understanding for the purpose of social interaction: ‘You know what I mean?’ In our everyday lives we approximate and assume an understanding without concern as to whether we mean precisely the same thing.

Leader: A leader is a person who is able to demonstrate the exercise of power or authority, or both, and cause a group of people to act in consort to achieve a purpose.

The objective of a correctly functioning organisation is to have all its leaders clearly identified and exercising authority for the effective and efficient achievement of the purpose of the organisation and where that authority is willingly accepted.

Within an employment hierarchy, all managers are leaders, but not all leaders are managers.

Leader, Work of: The work of a leader is to create, maintain and improve the culture of a group of people so that they achieve objectives and continue to do so over time.

Levels of Work: The sequence of qualitatively different complexity pathways that need to be created to achieve goals when performing work. Depending upon the inherent complexity of a particular task it will only be completed successfully if that complexity is resolved; hence it will fall into a specific level of work.

Management: The work of ordering and sequencing the application of resources to achieve a predetermined purpose. Good management does this effectively and efficiently.

Human capability, in all its aspects, is one of the resources available to a manager that needs to be applied, through a person to person interaction, whereas other resources involve person to object interactions.

Manager: A person who is accountable for his or her own work and the work performance of people reporting to him or her over time. All managers are leaders of people; they have no choice. Their only choice is to be a good or bad leader.

Mental Processing Ability (MPA): The ability of a person to generate order from the chaos by means of thought. The generation of order, which requires the understanding of relationships, is essential if intention is to be turned into reality, i.e. work is done. The ability to make order out of the chaotic environment in which humans live out their lives and in which they work. It is the ability to pattern and construe the world in terms of scale and time. The level of our MPA will determine the amount and complexity of information that we can process in doing so. (This definition draws in part from I. Macdonald (1984: 2) and also from Jaques (1989: 33)).

Not all people have the same ability to generate order (MPA) and hence the same ability to perform work. Some will be able to resolve more complex problems than others. This distribution of MPA in the human population is discontinuous which leads to differing levels of work complexity or levels of work. There is no evidence that a person’s MPA changes in adulthood though the other aspects of capability, and particularly knowledge, are amendable to change over time.

Meritocracy: An organisation wherein people are assigned work, rewarded, promoted and titled based upon their capability to do the work of a role.

Mutual Knowledge Unit (MKU): A structural unit of an organisation made up on a manager and his or her direct reports.

So called because of the need for there to be a reasonable mutual knowledge of the life experience of other members of the MKU if its social processes are to function well in the work environment.

Mutual Recognition Unit (MRU): A structural unit of an organisation made up of a manager, his or her direct reports, some or all of whom are managers, and their direct reports in turn.

An MRU spans three levels of work structure in the organisation.

The need for mutual recognition stems from the authority of the manager-once-removed (M+1) that applies to the direct reports at the lower level of the MRU.

In relation to these MRU members the M+1 has the authority to veto selection, recommend selection, assess potential, review decisions that relate to them and to either dismiss or recommend dismissal from the organisation. The proper exercise of these authorities requires, as a minimum, that the M+1 and the direct reports know one another’s work well enough to allow mutual recognition.

Mythology: From Mythos – the story with emotional content: Logos – the explanatory rationale or meaning of the story.

Mythologies are the stories that inform us about what constitutes good and bad behaviour.

We look at systems, symbols and people’s behaviour through the lens of our mythologies and assign what we see to a place on one or more of the scales of human values.

Our mythologies are our beliefs about whether what we see strengthens social cohesion in our group or whether it weakens it.

Mythologies are not changed; new ones need to be constructed. Mythologies may lie dormant for years and can be enlivened by an event in the future.

Network: People working towards a common purpose or with common interests where there is no requirement for members of the network to have a work relationship with others, and there is no requirement for mutuality as there is with a team.

Operations Work: Work that is directly connected to the output that an organisation has been established to produce.

Operations work will be directed to developing a product to satisfy the perceived needs of customers, producing a product to satisfy the current needs of customers or directed to the selling of those products to customers.

All three aspects of operations work are essential if a business or service organisation is to remain viable over time (See also Service Work and Support Work).

Organisational level: A band across an organisation in which all the roles have a similar distribution of work complexity (level of work).

Organisational structure: The arrangement of the roles in an organisation that, when correctly done, identifies and matches work complexity and the authority necessary to perform that work so the purpose of the organisation is achieved efficiently and effectively over time.

The structure is the equivalent of the bone structure of the organisation; its form is made visible and accessible by way of its titling system.

Output: The observable result of work having been done. It is assessed in terms of quality and quantity.

Performance (Two Definitions):

1)Output/results (or measures of same)
The relationship between targeted output and achieved output
Output or results can, and must, be measured.

2)Work Performance. How well a person has done in producing the results (output) taking into consideration all relevant circumstances. How well has the person carried out the work of the role?

Work performance cannot be measured; it must be judged by a manager based on how well the person has worked to achieve the assigned output, or result, in the situation in which the work was performed.

Policy: A statement that expresses the standards of practice and the criteria required to be demonstrated by the behaviour of people who work for the organisation.

Policy is the formal expressions of the organisation’s ethical framework, it is a statement that expresses the intended ethical and operational standards that the organisation seeks to demonstrate through the application of its systems and the behaviour of its people and the symbols it uses.

As stated above, the formal expressions of the organisations ethical framework lies in the policies of the organisation. Policies are statements of intent.

Power: See Authority and Power.

Process: The mechanism by which inputs are converted into the specified outputs.

Purpose (of a task assignment): What is to be achieved by accomplishing a task. For an organisation, policy or system, the objective intended by its action in practice.

Quantity/Quality (of a task assignment): The expected output of the task and the standard expected. These are treated as a single dimension as one cannot have quantity without quality, nor quality without quantity.

Resources (necessary to complete a task assignment): Authority, facilities, equipment, money, people, access to information, access to assets, time.

Responsibility: Synonymous with accountability but long use in organisations that failed to hold people responsible for their work has led to its general use as a collective noun for tasks, as in ‘your responsibilities are as follows …’ ‘the general responsibilities of the role are …’.

Service Work: Service work is directed towards the efficient and effective performance of those functions that are essential for the continuing activity of the operations functions e.g. accounting and finance: statutory reporting: regulatory compliance: audit: personnel benefits and payroll, etc.

Social Process: Person to person interaction wherein the behaviour of each has a bearing upon the thoughts, emotions and behaviour of the other.

Social Process Skills:

Social process skills are those skills that give the ability to observe social behaviour, comprehend the embedded social information and to respond in a way that influences subsequent behaviour in a predictable way. In an organisation this results in behaviour that contributes to the purpose of the organisation.

Staff Relationship: A work relationship wherein a person accepts freely that his or her work performance will be judged on the basis of his or her personal work contribution and recompensed accordingly as opposed to a third party determined requirement such seniority, union nominated classification or externally determined qualification.

Strategy: A military term to do with the disposition and deployment of large military units, such as entire armies, such that the enemy’s forces may be defeated.

In business when correctly applied it is a plan for the achievement of the organisation’s purpose developed and implemented by the upper levels of the organisation.

Stratum (plural strata): In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers. In an organisational sense this term refers to layers in organisations that are internally consistent in work complexity (see Organisational Level).

Stratification on the basis of work complexity is the core of effective organisation structure.

When correctly done it generates a structure that corresponds to the differing capabilities of people to generate order from the chaos and so perform productive work that is required to achieve the purpose of the organisation.

It makes good sense to structure an organisation in a way that is in accord with the thinking patterns of people.

Supervisor: A leadership role in Stratum I, sometimes titled a Crew Leader. A supervisory role does not have the full range of authority that defines a managerial role but is one of the most important leadership roles in an organisation.

Support Work: Sometimes referred to as improvement work is that work which is directed towards the improvement of the systems and processes the organisation employs to perform its operations and service activities.

It is a part of the work of each role incumbent to think of ways to improve upon his or her current work, the support roles develop and test these ideas as well taking a wider perspective and seeking to improve the systems and processes that span numerous roles and activities.

Symbol: The outward manifestation of a cultural group, e.g. flags, rituals, medals, posters, slogans.

Symbols are interpreted as representing a position that is strongly positive on the values continua by the culture that employs the symbol and strongly negative by members of counter cultures.

System: A system is a framework that orders and sequences activity within the organisation to achieve a purpose within a band of variance that is acceptable to the owner of the system.

Systems are the organisational equivalent of behaviour in human interaction.

Systems are the means by which organisations put policies into action.

It is the owner of a system who has the authority to change it, hence his or her clear acceptance of the degree of variation generated by the existing system.

System Audit: A periodic review of a system by an external party that examines the system in use to determine whether or not it is being used as designed and intended, whether the control data is valid, whether it is being reported, reviewed and acted upon and whether or not the system is achieving the purpose for which it was designed. System audit is performed on behalf of the system owner.

System Control: A statistically valid sample of data from the system that allows the system custodian to confirm that the system is operating as it was designed to operate or to institute corrective action should it be required to have the system function as designed.

Note the difference between system control and controls as applied in safety systems. In safe work systems controls are activities that form part of the system itself.

System Custodian: The role within the organisation that does the work required to review the control data from a system and to advise the system owner of the state of use of the system and indicators of a system functioning drawn from the control data.

The system custodian may also be the system owner.

System Owner: The role within the organisation that authorises the purpose of the system and its design and implementation to achieve that purpose.

Only the system owner has the authority to change the system.

Systems of Differentiation: Systems that treat people differently, e.g. remuneration systems based on work performance.

All systems of differentiation should be based on the work (to be) done.

Systems of Equalisation: Systems that treat people the same way irrespective of any organisational criteria, e.g. safety systems.

Systems Leadership: An internally coherent and integrated theory of organisational behaviour. It is a body of knowledge that helps not only to understand why people behave the way they do, but also and perhaps more importantly to predict the way that people are likely to behave in organisations.

Systems Leadership is essentially about how to create, improve and sustain successful organisations.

Task: A Statement of intention articulated as an assignment to carry out work within limits that include the context, purpose, quantity and quality of output expected, the resources available and the time by which the objective is to be reached (CPQ/QRT).

Task Assignment Process: The clear articulation to the task doer of Context, Purpose, Quantity/Quality of Output, Resources, Time to Completion.

Task Feedback: Information the task doer receives regarding how well he or she carried out the task. This can come from nature, customers, peers, or the person’s leader.

Task Review: An assessment by the task doer’s leader of how well the task was performed. Task review provides information that is given to the task doer and comes from the task doer on a regular but random basis. The purpose is for the task doer and the leader to learn from both success and failure so performance may be improved. Note: in a correctly organised work hierarchy a task doer (direct report) has the authority to require a task review and report from his or her leader. Task Review includes all the components of the task: CPQ/QRT.

Team: A team is a group of people, including a leader, with a common purpose who must interact with each other in order to perform their individual tasks and thus achieve their common purpose.

Teamwork: A team member is part of the whole. It is only by active co-operation however, that the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts. The work of interaction that needs to be done by each team member to promote efficient and effective team functioning.

Technical Skills: Proficiency in the use of knowledge. This includes learned routines that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of work required to complete a task.

Time (as a resource): The amount of time available prior to the deadline. This may be expressed as people’s work hours available or the sum of hours prior to the deadline.

Time (in a task assignment): The targeted completion time is a boundary condition – a deadline indicating by when the task is to be completed.

Time-span: The targeted completion time of the longest task in a role equals the time-span of the role. It is a measure of one property of a work relationship between a manager and his or her direct report.

Time-span is the elapsed time to disorder, effectively how long a person of a given capability is able to generate order in the chaos in which he or she is working.

Universal Values: A typology of six universal human experiences that rate or judge all behaviours, systems and symbols heuristically. Behaviours, systems and symbols that are demonstrated and rated positively create social cohesion, those that are demonstrated and rated negatively destroy it.

There are six values which are, expressed positively, love: trust: fairness: respect for human dignity: honesty: courage.

As a set they are mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive and apply universally in all human societies.

The mythological lens that is used to position a system, symbol or behaviour on the values continua, either positive or negative, is unique to each person having been developed by their experience of life.

Work: Turning intention into reality.

Work Performance: An assessment made by a leader about how effectively and efficiently a direct report has worked in performing an assigned task taking into consideration the actual context in which the task was done.