CHAPTER 10 Organisational Structure and Authorities
Levels of Work and Organisational Levels
In much of the management literature, the structure of an organisation is treated as ‘boxes on a chart’ – only vaguely related to ‘how things really work around here’. As a result, structure is often perceived as an impediment rather than an opportunity to clarify roles, relationships and authorities.
We argue that, when an organisation is established to achieve a purpose, that structure is the framework for the distribution of authority and work. Structure involves vertical, horizontal and diagonal relationships. The vertical, or managerial, structure forms the spine of the organisation, though it often gets muddled because most organisations of any size not only have managerial roles, but also have ranks or salary grades. These are often confused with managerial levels – thus the excess layering found in many large organisations. As a result of such muddles hierarchies have been and are, criticised as being messy, cumbersome, stultifying to their employees, slow, and inefficient.
Here we make an argument for a set of ground rules that have been tested in many organisations and found to improve their efficiency and effectiveness as well as improving the quality of working life for their employees.
The appreciation of the qualitative differences in levels of work as shown in Chapter 9, the differences in Mental Processing Abilities, explains, we believe, why the hierarchical structure has remained so prevalent over centuries even when the actual designs have deep and recognised flaws.
The logic is as follows:
Box 10.1 The Logic of Stratification
1. Work is the process of turning intention into reality.
2. To do this work individuals must use their mental processing ability in order to make choices as to what will achieve their purpose and then act upon those choices to bring the purpose (intention) into reality.
3. People have different ways of processing information and solving problems.
4. There is a pattern to the differences in the ways human beings process information.
5. If one wishes to get work accomplished (as required in any organisation), it makes sense to structure the organisation in a way that is in accord with the different ways that people go about their work.
When Designing the Organisation we need to be clear about
PURPOSE
To structure any organisation requires a clear understanding of its purpose and objectives.
CREATING THE VERTICAL STRUCTURE
Once the purpose is clear, the levels of work must be reflected in the vertical structure of the organisation. Each level of work corresponds to a different level of work complexity. In organisations employing a number of people doing a range of work, we have found the levels of work can form a vertical structure that allows the best use of human capability because they reflect the distribution of Mental Processing Ability (MPA).
The organisational levels reflect the qualitatively different mental processing abilities found in the population. Each organisational level requires the creation of pathways of complexity unique to that level. As one moves up the organisational hierarchy, the complexity of these pathways increases. The complexity of the work required of the chief executive of the organisation establishes the top level of the organisation.
We can then consider how many levels are required based on the complexity of the work to be done. For example, if the CEO must work with the fifth level of complexity (Level V) and the products are produced by workers in a traditional factory at Level I, the organisation requires five levels of work. As we will show further on, this means there will be four levels of managers, including the CEO. In another organisation, the CEO may work in Level V, but the output of the business is carried out at Level III. In this case there would be a need for three levels of work.
The work required by a specific organisation depends upon its purpose and the complexity of work to achieve that purpose. A shoeshine stand may require only one relatively simple level of work, while a large public agency or corporation might require seven or in the largest organisations, eight levels of work such as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Military. Partnerships, a form of association, usually have no more than three levels of professional work – for example a law firm with associates, partners, and senior partners.
PLACING A WORK ROLE AT THE CORRECT LEVEL
A role can be conceived of as a bundle of tasks. Placing a role in an organisational level is an executive decision that should be based on an understanding of the level of work required to effectively handle the bundle of tasks in that role. If the level of work of the core tasks is judged to be Complexity III, then it should be placed in Level III even though it will have an array of tasks including some of I and II complexity. It is the complexity of the core tasks which should determine placement in an organisational level.
MATCHING PERSON TO ROLE
To be effective in a role at any specific work level, individuals must be able to work at the required level of complexity. They must have the capability (knowledge, social and technical skills, application, mental processing ability) to carry out the work.
They must also have an understanding of the next level up, that is, they must be able to follow the processes involved in the next higher level of work, and critique and contribute to that work but not be able (as yet) to act effectively in the higher role or take accountability for it. This understanding is part of the basis for communication and teamwork.
Similarly, to be effective, a person must also be able to fully articulate and encompass the next level down – have a complete understanding of the processes involved in creating pathways such that they can teach and/or delegate work. This does not mean a manager must have all the technical expertise of his or her direct reports. It does mean she or he must be able to articulate the tasks, their context and purpose, so that the direct reports can use their expertise effectively to achieve organisational purposes.
SIGNIFICANCE OF COMPLEXITY OF WORK LEVELS FOR ORGANISATION DESIGN
The work levels form a depth structure for employment hierarchies. They form the vertical skeleton for an effectively functioning organisation. The skeleton is based on two principles:
1. Managers are placed and are able to work at one work level above their direct reports.
2. In a single chain of command, there is never more than one manager within a given work level.
For an individual to add value as a manager of a direct report, he or she must be able to do work of different and higher complexity from the direct report. This broader horizon allows him/her to set the context for his/her direct reports and thereby provide a stabilised and understandable environment to allow the direct reports’ work to proceed.
The manager’s work must be significantly different from his or her direct reports, if he or she is to add significant value by articulating the work to be done by the direct report and by ordering the direct reports’ work environment. There must also be enough difference in the ability to handle complexity to justify the manager’s authorities consistent with a managerial relationship.
Research has shown that people in the hierarchy who are said to be the ‘real boss’ are people who are perceived to do qualitatively different work and to have a range of authorities in relationship to their direct reports. The common elements in this range of authorities are the VARI authorities described further on.
Too much difference between the manager’s and direct report’s work also causes difficulties because the direct report will not be able to understand the manager’s perspective. The manager, in turn, becomes impatient with the direct report’s lack of understanding and inability to ‘keep up’.
Whether the distance between manager and direct report is too great or too small, the result is a work environment that is not well ordered. There is a waste of effort and energy because direct reports are frequently unsure about what they are to do and which factors are within or outside their authority. Management must reduce uncertainty and anxiety by taking accountability for the environment within which their direct reports work.
This can only be accomplished when there is neither more nor less than one work level difference between manager and direct report. This allows each individual to understand the work above, generate and accept accountability for the work at his or her own level, and articulate the work below.
Benefits Associated with Getting the Organisational Structure Correct
• Removing excess managerial layers clears the decks making possible other benefits as well, such as cost reduction.
• Priorities can be set because the manager has a larger perspective than his/her direct reports.
• Direct Reports gain a clearer understanding of what is expected of them.
• Direct Reports are given an opportunity to use their full capabilities in exercising discretion in roles which are the right size – neither too difficult nor too simple.
• Role relationships can be regularised with no need for bypassing to get adequate direction for work.
• Information systems can be targeted to the right level of work, avoiding excessive monitoring, reporting and other such time wasters.
• It also provides people within the organisation an opportunity to increase order in their social and working lives – to create conditions that meet human needs for predictability, meaning and purpose.
MANAGERIAL AND PROFESSIONAL WORK
When it is recognised that it is the complexity of work which determines the level of work, it becomes obvious that technical specialists or professionals may do work at the same levels of complexity as that done by managers. In each work level there may be a need for high level technical work as well as managerial work depending upon the goals of the organisation.
The unfortunate practice of requiring expert engineers, computer scientists, geologists, police officers and other technical specialists to enter managerial roles if they wish to be promoted creates a situation where important technical work does not get done (or is done badly) because there is no one available at the higher levels to do it. Organisations that place technical specialists in a level commensurate with the complexity of work they must perform (with pay and recognition comparable to managers in the same work level) have a significant competitive advantage.
Such professionals may at times work as stand-alone independent contributors (IC) doing the high level direct output work, or they may have a few (three to six maximum) direct reports to assist them with their direct output. When ICs have direct reports, they must manage those direct reports, but the managerial workload is lighter allowing them to carry on their professional work.
To reinforce understanding of this equality of work and to maintain the depth structure of the organisation, it is useful to assign titles to roles that indicate the level of work and whether or not the role is managerial or professional. Such titles should be picked with care since they become drivers of the principal function of the role. The examples shown below provide an example of how titles might be structured, though in different societal and organisational cultures different titles may be chosen. The principle is that titles should indicate whether they are managerial or professional contributor roles and at what level they are assigned.
MRU stands for Mutual Recognition Unit. Some organisations prefer to call any three level organisation under a single manager an MRU whatever the level of the work. Output Team may refer to any two level part of the organisation under a single manager. This reminds managers at all levels about the necessary social processes required.
| Titles for Level V Business Unit - Examples | |||
| Work Level | Organization | Manager | Professional |
| V | Business Unit | Vice President | Corporate [Corporate Human Res Cons] [Corporate IS Tech Cons] |
| IV | Division | General Manager | Chief [Chief Applied Technology] [Chief Organization Advisor] [Chief, PC Technology] |
| III | MRU or Unit | Unit Manager | Principal [Prinicipal Personnel Advisor] [Prinicipal Syst. Programmer] |
| II | Output Team or Service Team | Superintendent | Specialist [Operations Sched. Spec.] [Applications Devel. Spec.] |
| I | Crew | Supervisor* Operator/Clerk [Printer Operator] [Library Clerk] |
|
* Not a managerial role.
PROFESSIONS, TITLES AND MPA
No matter their education, most people begin their working lives in a role at Level I. Even people with a professional education in law, medicine, engineering, social work, financial analysis, architecture, etc., begin in roles with a short time-span even though the complexity of the work may fully use their capabilities. As they move up, their title may or may not reflect the level of work they are actually accomplishing.
Some technical specialists are not particularly interested or good at leading people, yet in order to get to the level of work commensurate with their abilities, they are required to become managers. It will be more productive to place people at the level of work appropriate to their capabilities, and not confuse technical skills with social process skills or MPA.
An important point here is to note that a title does not tell you what level of work an individual is actually carrying out. It tells you what the role requires, not the MPA of the role incumbent.
GETTING THE HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE RIGHT
Once one eliminates the excessive layering of the vertical structure caused by the muddling of managerial levels and salary grades, it is relatively simple to get it right. Relationships which define the horizontal structure must be clear and authorised if the organisation is to achieve its purposes and survive and thrive in the market place. This is also true of public agencies, which must perform certain essential functions, as must businesses, if they are to exist at all.
There are three mainstream functions that are customer-focused and ‘do’ the business. All must be present, though one or two may be purchased from the outside, and all three may vary in size and scope depending upon the nature of the organisation. There are also two sustaining functions, which are internally focused to support and improve the mainstream functions.
Box 10.2 Three Essential Business Functions:
OPERATIONS, SERVICE AND SUPPORT
Operations are the Mainstream Business Functions
• Produce a product/service to meet customer needs
• Sell product/service to customers
○ Inform customers about products and their qualities and capabilities
○ Discover customer needs for which business might provide products
○ Negotiate agreements to meet customer needs
• Service work underpins the productive capacity of business
○ Account for, and control corporate financial resources
○ Maintain corporate resources
○ Keep the business up and running
○ Assure continuity of business
• Support work improves the productive capacity of business
○ Identify, evaluate, implement better ways of operating or servicing the business, give advice as to improvement
○ Improve work flows and processes
○ Improve technical processes
○ Research and develop new products/services
Note: All employees have some operational, service and support components to their job. Every employee is expected to use her resources productively. Every employee is expected to use his resources properly and maintain them in good order. Every employee is expected to continually seek to find a better way of using or maintaining the resources.
ALL ROLES REQUIRE CLEAR AUTHORITIES
The structural principles presented here are all based on authority that is distributed throughout the organisation. As we explained in Part1 every role must have authority, for without it work can only be done on the basis of power. Also if people in roles have no discretion, they are in effect no more than machines. Apart from the ethical problem this poses (see Part 1), it is a waste of resources because people do not make good machines and their abilities transcend those of machines.
Authority is not, therefore, the prerogative of leaders alone but a necessary component of every role, if real work is to be done. There is authority in peer relationships. There is authority from team members towards team leaders. Our proposition is twofold:
1. Every role should have clear, explicit authority.
2. This authority should be allocated on the basis of the work to be done in each role.
Because organisations are established to achieve a purpose, we are confronted by a situation where:
• there is some clearly defined work to be done by someone;
• they need authority to do it – and this needs to be explicit; and
• there should be someone else whose work includes determining whether and how well the assigned work has been done and what consequences, good or bad, follow.
All too often we have found that the above conditions do not exist. People are unclear what they are really meant to be doing; they are unclear about what authority they have and are even unclear about who they report to. We have had this lack of clarity praised and lauded to us as ‘flexible’ or ‘democratic’ and allowing for ‘creativity’. In our experience such organisations are riddled with power and have a hidden rigidity. Personal agendas and implicit rules cause damage to all but the brightest or strongest. It is interesting to hear some critics of hierarchy and authority implicitly supporting and encouraging the law of the jungle – survival of the fittest. We do not regard this as a just or effective way of achieving purpose and releasing potential.
We argue that to be effective not only should all roles have authority but as some roles appear in many organisations or many times in one organisation they can be categorised generally. We have found five vertical relationships in employment hierarchies, while there are many horizontal relationships. The basic vertical role is that of manager.
What is a Manager?
There are almost as many definitions of a manager as there are managers. Unfortunately, most of them do not clearly distinguish between those who have leadership work to do, and those who do not. Using the many common definitions manager, it is difficult to determine who in the organisation is a manager and who is not.
Box 10.3 Definition of Manager
Manager: A person held accountable for his or her own work and for the work performance over time of people reporting to him or her.
If one wants to build an organisation in which each employee may be fairly called to account for his or her work, it is essential to have a precise definition, as it is the manager’s work to hold people accountable for the quality of their work performance. It is essential that everyone know who is accountable for what and to whom (see Box 10.3).
This definition excludes all persons in an organisation who do not have people reporting to them. A managerial role is pre-eminently a leadership role. As we have said, the distinctions made by some scholars between ‘leaders’, who are visionary and charismatic, and ‘managers’, who are rather dull drones, is both insulting to managers and seriously destructive of improved management practice and hence leadership.
If you are a manager, you are a leader of people. You have no choice in this matter. Your only choice is whether to become a good leader or a bad leader. To be fully effective a manager must work at one level above his or her direct reports and thus be able to articulate and fully encompass the work of the next level down.
For managers to accept that they will be called to account for the work performance of others, they must have certain minimum authorities that relate to the work of those others. These authorities must always be exercised within company policy and the laws of the land. By definition authority is never without limits. There are constraints on the authority an organisation can grant to its managers, and there are further, and often more subtle, constraints based upon the acceptance of a manager’s authority by their team members.
Managers need to behave within, and act through, authority systems within limits that are subject to review if they are to be effective over time. Their ability to act derives from a clear grant of authority from the organisation that needs to hold role incumbents accountable for the proper exercise of that authority. It must be recognised, however, that authority is not only limited by organisation policies, but also has limits that are beyond the ability of the organisation to control easily. Failure to exercise this control leads to abuse by power and in time creates the need for unions and regulatory legislation.
The work of a manager is critically concerned with people. Accountability, when it applies effectively, is an integral element of the social relationship, that is, part of the social process that exists between a manager and the people who report to him or her. The manager’s work involves reviewing, recognising and rewarding work performance of team members, which only makes sense if the manager can actually assign tasks. Further, it makes sense that, if managers are to be accountable for the team’s work performance, they must have some say in who is a member of the team and who stays in or leaves the team. The proposition is simple, if a person does not have these authorities, they will not feel it is fair to be called to account for the work performance of their team members. The converse is also likely to be true, providing they have the appropriate capability. Jaques, Rowbottom and Billis and others at BIOSS (Brunel) have articulated this need and the authorities they arrived at were further developed and refined in work with CRA (now Rio Tinto) under Sir Roderick Carnegie in the 1980s.
The authorities represented in Figure 10.3 are the minimum required by managers if they are to accept accountability for the work performance of team members. The VAR3I authorities are the foundation underlying the definition of the term ‘manager’.
V: Veto selection. A manager may veto the selection of a new team member. In practice this means that the manager who is exercising the veto cannot be required to accept an employee whom the manager believes, with cause, would be unwilling or unable to contribute positively to the work of the team. [A manager who has direct reports placed on the team against his or her will cannot be fairly called to account for their work performance.]
It is important to note the difference between the authority to veto and the authority to select. Even when a manager is authorised to select a person for a role in an employment hierarchy, that selection is subject to veto by his or her manager, the manager-once-removed, manager-twice-removed, and so on. Veto means you do not have to have anyone you do not want. It does not mean you can always have your first choice.
It is also important to note that the veto is an authority and must be exercised within policy limits that include no unfair discrimination. A manager who seeks to abuse the authority to veto selection to role is rapidly exposed by his or her manager monitoring the sequence of vetoes and requiring an explanation for a skewed statistical distribution, e.g., a consistent veto of female or minority candidates for role.1
A: Assign tasks. This is the authority to assign tasks to direct reports. No one else in the organisation may assign tasks to a manager’s reports unless they first gain the approval of the person’s manager. (See Chapter 19 for tasks with an inset trigger where it may appear others are assigning tasks, but in fact the person is responding as his or her manager has authorised.)
R3: Recognise, review and reward work performance differentially. The manager reviews and recognises the overall work performance of direct reports in order to improve their work performance and the manager’s own work performance. Managers evaluate individual work performance and, within limits set by organisation policy, recognise and reward people differentially based on the manager’s judgement of their work performance. No one else in the organisation may differentially reward a manager’s direct reports without his or her approval. We do not just rely on reward such as money but note how significant review, feedback and non-monetary recognition are in influencing behaviour.
In the application of differential recognition, it is important to acknowledge its significance – public recognition, special assignments, public representation of the company at events, etc. The focus should not be entirely on money, though obviously these are very important. It is essential that recognition of poor work performance is also the work of the manager and must be timely done. All the other team members know if a person is delivering a poor work performance, and lack of recognition of this by the manager demonstrates either incompetence or a lack of courage. (As one angry employee wrote, ‘Manager X either has no guts or no brains.’) It also degrades the worth of any recognition they receive for good work performance.
I: Initiate removal from role. This authority means a manager is not required to keep a non-performing member of his or her team after the requirements of organisational policy have been met. The manager will be required to give valid and fair reasons for initiating removal from role, and the person to be removed must have been given proper warning and offered adequate help and opportunity to improve but has continued to deliver poor work performance.
The process is iterative as the manager’s manager (M+1) may ask the manager (M) to take specific actions to coach and counsel a person whose performance is not satisfactory. This is done to ensure fairness and, where necessary, to determine a case for dismissal. When all company policies regarding warnings and help have been given, M+1 may not require M to keep a person who is not satisfactory.
Once the person is removed from a particular role, the M+1 must decide if the person is to be transferred to another role within his or her organisation (subject to the veto of the manager who is to take this person into their team), or is to be removed from the organisation (see Figure 10.4). In some organisations M+1 recommends dismissal to M+2 who decides whether or not to dismiss.
M+1 MANAGER-ONCE-REMOVED RELATIONSHIP TO MANAGER’S DIRECT REPORT
The same constraints determine the reality of the authority held by the manager-once- removed as those that determine the authority of the manager, namely: law of the land, corporate policy, social custom and work practices and acceptance by the team member(s).
The authorities of the manager-once-removed are:
Box 10.4 Managers’ Additional Authorities
A manager may, in practice, have additional authorities – to spend money, allocate resources, sign contracts or select team members, subject to the veto of superiors – but the VAr3I authorities are the base minimum.
If a manager lacks all the VAr3I authorities, it must be recognised that she or he cannot be fairly held to account for the work performance of their reports over time. If the realities of corporate policy or industrial practice limit these authorities of the manager, M+1 must make adjustments to match accountability with the reality of authority limits.
Even though the organisation authorises a person to use the VAr3I authorities, there are still limits on their right to veto appointment and initiate removal from role. There are limits on the tasks they may assign to their reports. There are limits on the rewards that may be earned.
The authorities also carry with them an accountability to exercise them well. A key element in the judgement of managerial performance is how well these authorities are exercised. Decisions made in the exercise of these authorities by a manager are subject to appeal to M+1.
V: Veto selection. Authority to veto, in the same manner as the manager, above.
AP: Assess potential. This involves a judgement about an individual’s capability to do higher levels of work and their potential for promotion. M will be expected to comment on potential or to recommend promotion, but the authority to decide lies with M+1. This must be the case since only M+1 is in a position to decide if P is ready to work at the level of M.
The individual whose potential is to be assessed must be informed that M+1 has this authority and is accountable for this process. M+1 needs to learn about the person’s interests, knowledge fields, skills, ambitions, and the tasks on which the Manager believes P has shown his or her capability at its best. This allows the decision to be made soundly on the basis of data.
M+1 needs to discuss the assessment with the individual and learn more about the person’s interests and ambitions in the light of this assessment. M+1 may indicate possible career paths, educational or training opportunities and other steps that might be taken, and their timing, to allow P to undertake self-improvement more effectively. This assessment should indicate when the organisation should be taking steps to provide developmental opportunities to P, taking into account M+1’s assessment and P’s career aspirations. The M+1 must also advise P if he or she is judged not to have any potential for promotion to a higher level. This is often, but by no means always, found to be a liberating judgement.
The process of potential assessment is difficult. It is often the case that an employee who is performing the work of the current role does not demonstrate the capability to perform tasks of a higher work complexity but nonetheless is performing very well in their current role and is keen for promotion.
It is not the purpose of the potential assessment to shatter the aspirations of good employees, but no one benefits from the appointment to a role of a person who cannot perform the work of that role. It is also unfair and dishonest to suggest that some form of development activity or course of study will overcome a shortfall in the ability to perform work of higher complexity.
A technique used in some organisations is to assign specific tasks of higher work complexity to such people. The outcome for this work serves to confirm, or disconfirm, the judgement of the M+1, and in the event of a failure serves as a vehicle for the individual to appreciate the basis of the judgement. The proviso with this approach is that the person to whom the tasks are assigned does the work without assistance from others. This includes tasks of higher complexity where the individual needs to bring others into the process and part of the task is leading others.
It is important to recognise the system applied for potential assessment needs to be carefully designed and well controlled. If poorly done, it can be one of an organisation’s most damaging systems, for both the organisation and its people.
RS: Recommend Selection. As part of M+1’s work for the improvement of overall performance and the development of P, he or she also has the authority to recommend selection to a manager to fill a role as one of his or her direct reports. The manager’s authority to veto selection still applies. M+1 may recommend an individual based on knowledge of the person’s capability, the belief that a particular role or project assignment will be good for the individual’s development, or any other reason which is within M+1’s authority and the limits of law and policy. Managers need to understand the reasons for this authority and accept its validity as part of the process of providing development opportunities for people who may be able to work successfully at the manager’s level in due course.
DP: Decide on Promotion or Upgrade. As noted earlier, only M+1 is in a position to decide if an individual is ready to work at the level of his or her direct reports.
RD: Review decisions. This includes the authority to hear appeals from their manager’s reports. It is necessary that everyone in the organisation know that the M+1 level has the authority of the organisation to review a manager’s decisions. The manager must know this and factor it into the approach adopted when confronted with a problem. The person must know this, so neither the person nor the manager feels that the person is stabbing the manager in the back by going ‘over his or her head’.
A practice adopted by several good managers we know, at the end of a discussion resulting in a decision that the direct report may not agree with, is to say, ‘Now you have the authority to have my manager review this decision and possibly reverse it. You should feel free to ask for a review; that is the way we work here.’
RD: Recommend dismissal. The authority to initiate removal from role will, after appropriate processes, remove a person from the manager’s team, but not from the organisation. The decision to dismiss from the organisation may rest at a higher level to ensure another review and fairness when someone’s livelihood is to be removed.
Some organisations give M+1 the authority to dismiss; in others this lies with M+2. If it lies with M+2, then M+1 recommends dismissal. Where the authority to dismiss resides is a policy decision of the organisation.
DR: Design roles. The authority to design more roles (for more Ps) rests with M+1. (This includes the authority to re-design roles.) There are two main reasons for this. M+1 is in the best position to understand the context of the specific work involved and to judge whether a new role is required to undertake that work. He or she will have a better understanding of the wider business purpose and how the new role helps achieve that purpose. M+1 can ensure consistency of role design and fairness of the work volume for each role across the teams.
Notes on Sponsorship: The M+1 is sometimes called a sponsoring manager to emphasise his or her work of assessing potential and providing opportunities for an individual’s development and demonstration of his or her capability.
While something like sponsorship goes on in many organisations, it is often done only for a favoured few, and it is often the vehicle for the use of power. A system of clear authority for the M+1 reduces this problem, and assists in ensuring that everyone in the organisation is able to get fair consideration from someone who should be able to discern potential capability given their role one level above the person’s manager.
Authorities of the Supervisor
Although in some organisations the title ‘Supervisor’ refers to the first line Manager in a Level II role. In many industries the Supervisor occupies a lead role in Level I, which is how we are using the term here.
Box 10.5 Definition of a Supervisor
Supervisor: A leadership role in Level I. The leader of a crew within an output team.
Understanding the authorities of the Supervisor in relation to the Manager in Level II has been a source of contention both in theory and in practice. To clarify, we have represented the Supervisor role in Figure 10.5 including its essential authorities:
• RV: Recommend veto on selection
• A+/–: Assign tasks within limits set by M
• R3+/–: Review task work performance, recognise and reward differentially within limits set by M
• RI: Recommend initiation of removal from role.
This does not mean an intervening manager but someone in a leadership role with clear authorities as shown in Figure 10.5. What is most important, as always, is:
1. What is the work?
2. What is the authority?
In our experience, the term ‘supervisor’ is most often used to describe leadership work at the level of direct output of the organisation:
• the work cycle spreads across more than one shift per day;
• the desired output requires numerous identical roles;
• the manager at the level above has too many direct reports to give them day-to-day attention and the feedback they may require;
• the work can be ordered into demonstrable procedures in which people can be well trained and that do not require frequent intervention to resolve higher complexity problems and
• The nature of the work is such that a single team performing it will not generate the volume of higher complexity work required to keep a manager fully occupied in his or her role.
Box 10.6 Managers and Supervisors
The practice of good leadership on the part of managers requires that they make known to the crew where the limits of the supervisor’s authority to assign work, and recognise differentially, are. Managers must also make clear that they will not breach these limits without letting the supervisor know, unless it is an emergency.
The same constraints on authorities that apply to managers also apply to supervisors. In addition, there are other limits on the authority of supervisor roles, which are determined by their managers in line with organisational policy – for example, a manager may not pass all of his or her authority to a supervisor.
Supervisors may have budgets for reward: a dinner, social occasion, gift voucher or presentation, but not cash. The supervisor does have the authority to recommend to the manager who should receive pay increases, or not. However, like Veto and Initiation of Removal, this is a recommendation. These authorities sometimes become confused because, if supervisors are good at their work, they may rarely, if ever, have their recommendations rejected. This does not change the authority.
It is important for managers at all levels to understand the sensitivity and subtlety of managerial and supervisory relationships. Where the organisation requires supervisory roles, the success of these relationships is crucial for the effective functioning of the organisation. It is also essential that the differences in authority and work of the roles be reflected in the systems of performance review, performance evaluation and differential reward.
A General Theory of Role Relationships
There are many other roles and role relationships with appropriate authorities, M+2, project leader (see website) also there are many other role relationships which are critical to an organisation.
In addition to the vertical work relationships that operate through a more or less clear authority regime, every organisation has many horizontal and diagonal relationships that are essential to the success of a hierarchical organisation. Diagonal relationships occur when a direct report to a manager has, for example, a working relationship with the manager’s personal assistant or the manager’s peer manager.
Often these authority relationships are left to chance, or are termed the ‘informal’ organisation. We believe this is the cause of much difficulty in organisations – the ‘silo’ effect; the miscommunications between individuals in different organisational units; or the unwillingness of some people at a higher level of work to work with, or in some organisations even to speak with, someone at a lower level of work.
Much is to be gained from clarification of these multiple role relationships. We have found that to be consistently productive it is useful to have a clear understanding of what a work role relationship is and the authorities that may productively exist between roles (see Box 10.7).
Work relationships are mutually interdependent. When trying to understand them, we always argue ‘start with the work’. From there we can build the circumstances and systems of work relationships, and their associated authority regimes to promote the effective and efficient performance of that work to the principles we outline above. We urge people to be as accurate and creative as possible within these. There is no need for the rigidity often wrongly associated with hierarchy. Authority and authoritarian are too easily and sometimes deliberately confused.
Box 10.7 Principles
Our major point here is that to determine working relationships the following principles need to be applied:
• Determine the work required of the people involved; be clear about expectations.
• Allocate the appropriate authorities to the people concerned clearly and openly, so all know what they are and why.
• Ensure that these authorities do not conflict with other authorities but rather take them into account. For example, ensure that the managerial relationship and project leader relationship do not conflict.
• The authority should match what is necessary to achieve the work the person is assigned and will be called to account for.
All role relationships are part of the fabric of the social processes of the organisation. The nature of authority can be fundamentally affected by the way it is exercised. The exercise of authority is subject to the same principles as described in the discussion of the work of leadership. It must take into account mythologies, current systems and capability. Whilst all managers have (or should have) the same minimum authorities, the way these authorities are exercised will be slightly, or even wildly, different, according to the person and context.
Finally, we emphasise that authority is not simply top down or even sideways or diagonal but can be upwards as well. In Chapter 15 we will look, for example, at the authority of the team member with regard to the team leader.
We have come across many situations where team members have taught their leaders technology and skills. People are not just given authority to direct or instruct. They should have the authority to negotiate, consider, teach, recommend, ask, give advice, inform. These are all significant authorities and can be distributed in many different ways according to the work to be done.
In our experience it is not authority that is the problem but rather the lack of clarity of authority, leading to the use of power. Lack of clarity is not resolved by ‘being democratic’ or ‘flexible’; it is resolved by understanding what authority is needed either temporarily in project work or as part of a permanent role to allow the role incumbent to perform his or her work without needing to rely on the exercise of power. It is then part of the work of anyone to exercise the authority accorded to them with skilful social process.
Conclusion
We have argued that people think differently and approach problem solving in their own unique way. There are, however, patterns to these differences that can be categorised as described in the Levels of Work. Further, by following these patterns as the vertical structure of the organisation is created, your organisation will work with human nature and not struggle against it.
Three of the five vertical authority relationships are found in all organisations, and they create the stratified structure. They are, however, only part of the structural picture. The horizontal authority relationships between the essential business functions must also be understood and made clear with a much more diverse set of authorities given the diversity of the horizontal role relationships.
Whatever the eventual design, we argue that the work should be clear and known to all as should be the authority to do that work.
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1 The authority to select without a veto being available to someone else, and the authority to dismiss, does exist for the owner-manager of a small business. He or she, however, must still operate within the limits set by law or wind up in court.