Are Hierarchies All Bad LO8126

David Howard (d.howard@dme.wa.gov.au)
Wed, 26 Jun 96 14:06:00 -0500

Replying to LO6809 --

I am a new subscriber to Learning-org having come across it while browsing =
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for information on organisational structure. =

Last April, in a response to Eric Opp's "Are hierarchies all bad?" LO6809, =
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John Farago (LO6940) made reference to the work of Elliott Jaques and his =
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writings on hierarchies and "requisite organisation". I have scanned =
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through the subsequent messages on this thread and found no further =
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references to Jaques or his Stratified Systems Theory of structure and =
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hierarchy in "managerial organisations".

I am an analyst/planner in a State Government Department in Western =
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Australia (A$65M budget, ~600 people) where we are in the process of =
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moving towards a "jaquesian" structure, trying to adapt Jaques' concepts of=
=
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"managerial leadership" and "requisite organisation" within a still somewha=
t =
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rigid public sector bureaucracy. =

The ideas have struck chords with most, if not all, all staff - some =
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harmoniously others cacafonously! The response has been mixed but the =
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process is certainly making people sit up and take notice of what they do =
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and their relationships with their managers, peers and subordinate staff. =

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has had any personal =
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experience of either introducing "requisite structure" (and behaviour) into=
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an organisation or who has worked in a "requisite organisation" and who =
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wouldn't mind sharing their learning.

David Howard (d.howard@dme.wa.gov.au)
Department of Minerals and Energy, Western Australia
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David Howard <d.howard@dme.wa.gov.au>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>