KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge here consists of two categories: first, part or all of an accepted body of knowledge; and second, knowledge that has been produced as a largely self-generated body.

Knowing all or part of a body of knowledge is what we have referred to before as scientific meaning. It is concerned with knowledge of currently agreed-upon definitions, theories or facts, for example, nuclear physics, the periodic table, algebra, calculus and/or other scientific disciplines with current but not necessarily uncontested inter-relationships. In the arts there are also bodies of knowledge covering facts (Who wrote Great Expectations and who are the main characters?) and knowledge about opinions (Do you know Christopher Hill’s analysis of the English Civil War? How does he critique this conflict?). Essentially this element is about what we learn in schools, colleges and universities and from our own researches. Employers and educationalists may differ as to what is important to learn but it is about learning subjects from an established curriculum. We make assumptions about the knowledge an individual has in specific disciplines from the shorthand of qualifications, even though there are debates about the value of degrees from certain universities or institutions.

Another type of knowledge is self-generated – heuristics. Thus a person may have knowledge gained as a result of their experience of people with mental illness, living in a large family or travelling internationally. The point about this self-generated knowledge is that it may not be organised into disciplines or accepted structures. It is more difficult to test but can be elicited by careful questioning and listening.

All roles and all tasks require some prior knowledge and it is important to be clear what knowledge is required and to what extent the person being considered for the work has such knowledge.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

This element refers to a proficiency in the use of knowledge. It includes learned routines that reduce the complexity of work required to complete a task.

It has been recognised that having a skill makes a task easier. It essentially reduces the complexity of a task because you do not have to think through or work out the process being considered to carry out the work. This emphasises the difference between knowledge and skill. I may have a significant amount of knowledge about the internal combustion engine, but can I change a piston? I may know all the letters on a keyboard, but can I type?

The need for skill and the difference between knowledge and skill is most apparent when we learn a new skill: driving, playing tennis, golf, skiing and touch-typing. At first it is very difficult to steer, change gear and keep an eye on the road at the same time. Gradually the processes become less conscious until it is internalised and second nature. This allows us to concentrate on what is really important. In the case of driving, not having to think about steering, breaking or changing gear allows us to concentrate on the road, other traffic and pedestrians. This is most apparent when we suddenly have to consciously re-engage with the process because of an unexpected event such as a sudden flat tyre, poor brakes or loss of steering.

In effect, technical skills once acquired do not require much cortical brain activity. This effectively allows more room for the cortical activity to be applied to real and current problem solving (see Mental Processing Ability below). The more pressing the immediate problem, the more important the embedding of the skill. A fire fighter does not want to be working out how breathing apparatus works whilst in a burning building. A combat soldier does not want to try and remember how to load a rifle in the middle of a battle.

We recognise that certain skills appear to be learned or acquired more easily by some people than others. We recognise that some people have what is usually referred to as a natural aptitude. Others appear to have no aptitude at all: they are all fingers and thumbs, or more technically, they suffer from dyspraxia. We do not intend to discuss this in depth here as our experience is that technical skills in organisations can be taught to most people if they are sufficiently interested. Those organisations where the key staff are employed first and foremost for their extraordinary technical skills, are not usually traditional employment hierarchies, for example, professional athletes and artists.

Whatever the work, as we have said about knowledge, it is critical to identify what skills are required and make an assessment as to whether and to what extent a person has, or could quickly acquire, the skills required to perform the work successfully.

SOCIAL PROCESS SKILLS

Work is an activity with a powerful social element. Our survival requires social cohesion. Values are embedded deeply in the process of all human relationships. Recognition of the central significance of social process is evident throughout this book. Understanding and managing social process is critical. Thus for many years we have given significant attention to the development of a deep understanding of social process (see Box 8.2).

This element is at the heart of leadership. Too often in organisations we have seen leadership roles given to people who are very technically skilled and/or intellectually very able but who have poor social process skills. The result is usually damaging, if not disastrous, and at times tragic if the person involved is lost as to why he or she is failing as a leader. Poor leadership also damages the people subject to it.

By social process skills we do not mean the ability to be nice or get on with people. Social process skill is required for handling confrontations, disciplinary issues or poor performance. In the Church and many voluntary organisations people often equate good relations and social process with being friendly or not upsetting people, whereas we are referring to the ability to get work done.

As discussed throughout this book, relationships with people are not soft science. This area can be highly complex and sensitive. Brute force, oppression or intimidation will not only fail over time but will not release capability. If we are not to objectify people we must understand how they see the world. We must understand their mythologies, how they view themselves, each other and us. In addition we must work out ways of influencing relationships so that they are directed to a productive purpose, not simply to building the harmony of the group. In short, if we put too much emphasis on output and thereby ignore social process, that output will not be sustained over time. If we put too much emphasis on social processes designed to generate person-to-person harmony, we will degrade our ability to achieve the output required.

This highlights a fundamental difference between work relationships and friendships. Work relationships exist to produce a good or service that is valued by others. Friendships exist for the sake of the relationship. A friendship does not have to be productive or even particularly valued by others outside the friendship. Friends can just be with one other. Confusing these different types of relationship will lead to problems. It is not necessary for people at work to be friends as long as they behave towards each other positively according to the values continua. It is not necessary for friends to engage in highly productive work. This does not mean that work colleagues cannot be friends, or that friends cannot be actively engaged in making or doing things, merely that the social processes are different. You may have experience of, or know of, friends who have embarked on a business venture or turned a hobby into a business who have become disillusioned. You may have experience of, or know of, colleagues who believe they have been let down by people at work: ‘I thought you were my friend – why did you apply for that job?’

The authors have long been wary of companies that promote a lot of social events, bonding, inviting spouses and partners to events and talking about work being like a family. It is not that these are inherently bad, but they can cause confusion and cynicism when the invitation is really a requirement and the social, bonding event is really a covert assessment centre.

In this book, we are referring to a person’s ability to establish good, productive working relationships both directly and indirectly through teamwork and delegation. It requires an interest in and genuine regard for people, an appreciation of people not as production units but as creative and curious individuals who have their own unique way of seeing and being in the world.

This element, that for many years we have termed social process skills, has some similarities with the more recent term emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1996). While we have detailed differences and concerns with that concept, we do agree that this element has been underestimated by many organisations as an essential part of successful working relationships.

MENTAL PROCESSING ABILITY

Perhaps the least familiar of the elements that make up our formulation of human capability is mental processing ability (often referred to as MPA). We begin with Elliott Jaques’ definition of cognitive processes: ‘… the mental processes by which a person takes information; picks it over; plays with it; analyses it; puts it together; reorganises it; judges and reasons with it; and makes conclusions, plans and decisions, and takes action.’ (Jaques, 1989: 33). These mental processes are the way an individual organises his or her thinking when working (attempting to turn intention into reality) (see Box 8.3).

The richness and diversity of the world that each person creates is indicative of the complexity of the mental process that a person can apply to make sense out of their experience of the world. Because our environment is constantly changing, this effort to make sense of it is a continuous process. It requires constant work – turning intention into reality.

From our own experience we know that people are more able or less able to comprehend the information available to them in a given situation, its relevance to the work at hand and to formulate cause and effect relationships between events they experience in the world. People show differences in their ability to generate and test hypotheses about relationships and to predict the outcome of a course of action. All of us have differing abilities to do work.

Each of us perceives the world in our own way. Some people will see the world as it presents itself in front of them; they are most comfortable with what they can directly see and even touch. They like direct links between the action they take and the result they get. Their solution will deal with what is immediately present. Other people will see that the results they want cannot be achieved directly, that many different systems and outside influences will have to be changed, if there is to be a successful outcome. The difference is in the way different individuals take in and organise information, how broadly they see the inter-relationships of what is going on, and how much they can encompass in their formulation of their world.

For example, there is a truck with a broken gearbox. To one person that is the problem and it can be fixed today. Another person realises that while the damaged gearbox can be replaced today and the truck put back in action, he or she appreciates that driver behaviour may have been part of the cause and considers how it might be rectified. A third mechanic considers that the original design of the gearbox could have a part to play and thinks through how this might be corrected. Finally, a fourth person might question the use of trucks for this type of transport and proposes an alternative. All of these views are valid and helpful. We need to ask: what is the work required by whom?

Like Jaques, Gibson and Isaac (1978) and Stamp (1978), we agree that these different ways of seeing the world are divided into distinct groupings. Rather than MPA being seen as a gradual, continuous line along which the whole population is spread, what Jaques originally found was a series of types of processing. Because each approach to the world and problem solving is discrete, someone with Type II MPA will see a problem and its potential solutions in a completely different way from someone with Type IV MPA. The person with Type II MPA will simply not see the problem with the same range of variables, relationships and consequences. These differing approaches are neither right nor wrong, but their appropriateness depends upon the context and the inherent complexity of the particular task to be accomplished.

The concept of discrete orders of complexity is discussed at length in the following chapter. What we believe requires emphasis here is the importance of these discrete orders to what follows. Their effect is pervasive. Our argument is that the chaos itself is not formulated with discrete levels of complexity, but is chaotic. It is our observation that it is human work, making order of the chaos, that has discrete, and therefore discontinuous, levels of complexity. It is the discontinuous nature of the human mental processing ability that generates order from the chaos to bring work to fruition, turning intention into reality and in so doing generates the discontinuity in work complexity.

We do appreciate that the notion of discontinuity is at odds with many of the popular concepts of the distribution of mental processing ability in the population. As to the mechanism that leads to mental processing ability, there is, at present, no certainty. Recent research suggests the element of brain functionality referred to as working memory may be relevant (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974: Baddeley, 2000; McLeod, 2012).

There have been many attempts to describe this intellectual or cognitive element of capability. This ranges from the classic IQ to new and different forms of intelligence such as crystallised and fluid (Cattell, 1971, 1987; Belsky, 1990). What is common about all of these attempts, including ours and Jaques’, is that all concentrate on problem solving and all are concerned with moving from the concrete to the abstract as part of the higher complexity problem solving.

APPLICATION

People may be very able in terms of mental processing, very skilled in managing social processes. They may have great general knowledge and technical skill, but unless they actually apply it in the workplace it is of only latent value. Practising managers value this attribute of application for its obvious practical relevance.

When one of the authors (Ian Macdonald) worked for the British Civil Service Selection Board, this element was divided into drive and determination. Kolbe (1991) refers to it as conation, a term we like, which is defined as the desire to perform an action. Essentially this is the element that affects not whether a problem can be solved (by someone) but whether it will be solved. A person with high application has the drive to see a task through to completion, providing they have the MPA and skills to resolve the inherent complexity of the task.

MENTAL PROCESSING ABILITY

Despite these caveats, we cannot ignore the reality of the differences between people as demonstrated in their performance of work, especially with regard to mental processing ability. We see the way in which a person makes sense of the world (making order of the complexity of the chaos) as essentially fixed by the time a person reaches early adulthood. We have not seen successful examples of adults learning entirely new mental processes and being able to solve original problems of a type that previously they were unable to resolve. We accept absolutely that people can learn techniques and methods that enhance their current abilities or help realise potential. In other words, their capability to carry out work through time can increase, while their mental processing ability remains constant.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

While we have experienced many examples of the inability of people to improve their mental processing ability in adulthood, we have seen plenty of evidence for the acquisition of skills, even late in life. While, some people appear to have more aptitude than others (hand–eye co-ordination, for example, or balance or dexterity), most skills are teachable to the level of organisational requirement. Some aspects of very fine craftwork or sporting prowess may be more difficult to learn and are either due to aptitude or life-long learning (child apprenticeships). For the purposes of this book and the range of activities covered by most organisations, the technical, mechanical and other skills required to work effectively are, from our observation, possible to teach to the great majority of people.

SOCIAL PROCESS SKILLS

Again, we believe these can be taught. We do not subscribe to the simple born leader theory. It is inevitable that early experiences and opportunities can strongly affect this area. A person brought up and encouraged to engage in social processes is more likely to be adept and skilful than someone brought up either in a more isolated milieu or someone who has been encouraged to develop relationships with objects rather than people.

It is interesting to note here the general, but not exclusive, nature of socialisation for boys and girls. While this has been changing in recent decades, girls are still more often encouraged to engage in social process (talking, discussing, analysing relationships) and playing social games (including families, dolls and nurses) than boys. Boys are likely to be socialised into interest with mechanics, technical, electronic games.

The analogy for social process would be more like learning a language. If it happens early in life, it is easy, natural and the facility is both acquired and used with apparently little effort. Learning a language later in life is not only physically more difficult; it requires more determination, effort and desire. It is not, however, impossible. It can also be likened to musical ability. Some people have an ‘ear’ for music. They can hear a piece of music and then just play it on an instrument. Such people are rare as indeed are people who are truly, totally tone deaf. Most of us fall somewhere in between. We do have musical ability and it can be enhanced by training and practice.

This should come as no surprise. The social process skills are the first learned and most often practiced. Consider the effort a mother puts into establishing person-to-person bonds with her child and the joy of receiving the child’s first smile of recognition in response. It is to be expected that one’s social process skills are not easy to change and in fact universal plasticity of social process would result in a highly unstable society, not supportive of continued species survival.

KNOWLEDGE

Clearly, knowledge can be more readily and easily acquired than skills and can be expanded throughout life. It is, by definition, learned. Even self-generated knowledge acquisition continues. People, however apparently fixed in their ways, will not be able to prevent learning even if it is uncomfortable. However the rate of learning and hence the amount that can be learned will vary, and will also vary from person to person. This rate of learning, or building the knowledge base, will depend to an extent upon the knowledge already held about a subject and the interest and attention paid during the opportunity to learn. One very important determinant of learning rate, however, is often not appreciated is a person’s mental processing ability. A person who can order high levels of complexity, construe and understand complex patterns and derive the relationships that exist between the variables in play, will build and acquire knowledge at a faster rate than another person who is unable to do this but may be presented with the same opportunity to learn. This ability to build knowledge rapidly from the experience of the chaos is sometimes described as learning from first principles.

Thus while we all continue to acquire knowledge, the rate at which we do so, its inherent intricacy and our subsequent use of it to perform work are dependent upon our mental processing ability.

APPLICATION

In accord with Kolbe’s concept of conation, we recognise that some people appear to have more energy, drive and determination than others. Whether this is innate or strongly influenced by early experience, we do not know. What we do know is that application in the workplace is very strongly influenced by the context. This includes in order of influence:

• The quality (that is, behaviour) of the person’s immediate leader including how well, or poorly, the leader clarifies expectations and gives feedback.

• The structure and systems of the organisation: is the work of the role clear? Does it have proper authority? Are the work systems helpful in achieving goals or are they layered in red tape? Are the resources necessary for the work readily available?

• The general quality of relationships. This includes other leaders, the manager-once- removed and work colleagues.

• Symbols: the quality of the equipment, plant, housekeeping and the attention to safe practice.

So while some people do give up before others, and few of us have the drive and determination of the explorer Ernest Shackleton, this element, for most people, is strongly influenced by their environment. In Gallup and other work surveys there is a consistent message that the main reason for people leaving an organisation (for negative reasons) is poor leadership in the form of the person’s immediate manager.

One of the authors (Macdonald and Couchman, 1980 and Macdonald, 1990) observed and documented significant changes in behaviour, especially in ‘application’, when the context changed for people with learning difficulties.

1. ASSESSING THE PERSON, NOT THE ROLE

We have found it to be common practice for leaders to assess and rank people against each other rather than being clear about what the work is that needs to be done. Before we look at capability we must be clear about capability for what? This question does not answer itself, of course, it drives a discipline of developing a clear answer. Too often people are assigned to poorly designed roles, given poorly defined tasks in the hope, sometimes realised, that they will work out what to do.

Apart from leading to circumstances wherein it is most unfair to expect people to accept accountability for their work. You did not tell me you wanted me to do that; I did the best I could at the time. It also leads to the use of power and chance achievement. A leader who behaves in this way is simply passing the buck or asking someone else to do the work for which he or she is paid. In all fairness, such leaders should pass on some of their salary with the buck.

The pertinent issue for a leader assessing someone for a role is whether or not he or she has the capability to do the work of the role and not how they compare to Fred or Anne.

2. BE CAREFUL NOT TO ELEVATE ONE ELEMENT ABOVE OTHERS

Certain roles or tasks will appropriately emphasise one or more of the elements of capability. For example, a leadership role may require stronger social process skills than those required for a technical maintenance role, which in turn will require more specific knowledge and technical skills. However, it is dangerous to emphasise one element at the expense of another. For example, while mental processing ability is necessary, it is not sufficient and will not compensate for poor application or social process skills.

If we assume that the knowledge and technical skills are slightly easier to specify and evaluate (as in criteria for selection, for example, must have clean driving licence, degree in chemistry, keyboard skills or computer literacy), we are left with three dimensions: mental processing ability, social process skills and application that are more difficult to assess. We can see those in comparison using the example of three people A, B and C (see Figure 8.1).

This representation is not strictly accurate since Mental Processing Ability should be represented discontinuously i.e. divided into categories rather than a continuous line. However, we can see that person A may be very impressive in terms of drive and energy but may well fail to address or even understand the work really required. With luck they may not cause too much damage as poor social process skills may cause them to be isolated. However in a leadership role this person would be catastrophic. Person B is certainly bright enough and relates fairly well to people but does not have the energy to get much done. The saving grace may be that the person is bright enough to find the short cuts! Person C is heading for a heart attack or breakdown since they are highly committed (as evidenced by the high application score), and relate really well but just cannot do the work (solve problems) required. They will put in more and more hours and be at a loss to know why efforts are failing.

All three of the authors have actually observed situations where an individual died because of this type of mismatch between capability and job requirements. This tragedy can be avoided if one understands what is happening and the potential consequences.

The point here is that we must be wary of believing that a high ranking of one element will compensate for another; that a high degree of energy will make up for a lack of MPA or really good MPA will compensate for poor social process skills. Application and social process skills can be improved but not to the extent that they make another element irrelevant. In determining what is required in each of these five elements it must be borne in mind that each is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

Perhaps the most important caveat is not to confuse capability and the worth of a person. These elements refer to the capability to do work. It is a very significant problem for all of us that a hierarchy of capability to do work of certain types can become confused with a hierarchy of personal worth. That is to fall into the trap of assuming that ‘if I have a higher MPA than you, I am a better person’, that singularly unpleasant classification of the worth of people that assumes operators are less worthy as people than managers. This has echoes of feudalism and aristocracy and is still evident in many industrialised societies especially in Europe, although such ideas are of concern in the U.S. as well (see The War on Stupid People, Freedman, 2016). It also reflects a confusion between a meritocracy and other types of social organisation.

Figure 8.1 Comparison of Mental Processing Ability, Social Process Skills and Application in Persons A, B and C

We have had the experience of some of these concepts of capability, work complexity and level of work, becoming substitutes for older status symbols such as title and pay grade in organisations. Leaders need to be aware of this possibility, monitor it and address it, as the practice can become destructive, particularly around the use of mental processing ability as the symbol because of its fixed nature in adulthood.

This model of capability, with its five elements, can be used not only to consider an individual’s suitability for a role or task but also to review an entire organisation or part of it. The leadership can review the organisation’s capability in more general terms: how do we score in matching mental processing ability to the work of each role? Do we have enough technical skills and/or knowledge? How good are we at our social process? Do we have people who are committed and have the drive and determination? Is it a high or low energy organisation?

The issue of capability is highly significant in organisations that are producing goods and services because the most effective way of delivering them is through a meritocracy based on work.