"How Should Who Lead Whom to do What?"

by Dr. Clare Graves

YMCA
Management Forum 1971-1972

From the Historical Collection of the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves
- presentations, papers, recorded transcripts, notes-
William R. Lee                                                                                                                      August 2003

Now, having briefly seen the way I would suggest to think about and organize for the specifics of each managerial situation you may be in the mood to throw up your hands in despair. But don’t be overwhelmed because putting this type of thinking about the management problem into operation is not as complex as it may appear on the surface.

Take, for example, an organization producing product X which is fabricated of subparts A, B, and C. Let us say that we have three managers each naturally managing by a different style. And let us say that this organization now has one manager responsible for production of sub-assembly A, another for B and a third for assembling C to A and B to produce the product X. And let us say that each manager has under him people who operate at three different behavioral levels, a condition very common in organizations today. Can you see that s simple reorganization based on the kind of work and A task is, the B task is and the C task is might be solved by a simple reorganization of people? Our first manager could take over the people with whom he is in tune and who are in tune with him and reorganize the way dictated by the A tasks having as his supervisors people who are tuned to this kind of work and to the style and procedures of his management.

At first glance it would appear that this could best be accomplished by using instruments to assess the level of operation of the workers and the managerial style of the manager. But this I do not recommend. Instead, I recommend the use of a set of managerial systems that have built into them the theoretical position I have so briefly described. These systems permit the worker to indicate, through his open choice, the kind of work he is comfortable with and they achieve the end of allowing the manager to indicate, to those who run the organization, what is his natural style of management. By the use of these, it is possible to utilize the cues for effective management without making guinea pigs of anyone in the organizations.

Unfortunately time does not permit me to detail the use of the managerial systems that operate through employee choice rather than by test categorization but I do want to say a few words about them before I close.

One system is the job placement system. It consists of a triad of coordinated instruments called the comprehensive job description, the job preference inventory and the position adjustment inventory. Each instrument examines the same twenty factors related to job adjustment.

The comprehensive job description describes jobs in terms of such factors as monotony vs. variety, type of social interaction required, degree of incumbent control of the pace of work, etc., These factors are rated on a quantitative rating scale. Thus the profile of each job in an organization can be struck. Thereby the employment office can store this information and use it to discuss job possibilities with applicants or those seeking transfer.

The applicant or potential transferee can express his preferences on the same twenty factors in the same quantitative manner through the job preference inventory. Thereby the personnel office can discuss job possibilities with the applicant or potential transferee in terms of:

a.       The expressed preferences of the job seeker.

b.      The existence or non-existence in the organization, as now constituted, of jobs akin to or more akin to those expressed by the job seeker.

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