"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

Secondly, each time the motivational method is switched, some subordinates previously not too productive now become more productive. But a close examination reveals that companion, and even more significant results have occurred. These companion results show that each time our motivational methodology is changed some people quite productive before are not as productive after the change. And some people who were not previously productive are still not productive. That this is so is easily verified. It is verifiable from any manager’s experience and it is verifiable in the literature.

To test this hypothesis in the literature do the following: The next time you read a research article, on motivating people, attend to all the results not just the favorable ones. Note particularly the equally important findings that say in a minority of cases that always some people are not affected or are negatively affected by any motivational methodology used.

The information I have brought before you, the propositions I have laid down and the issues I have raised indicate that organizing for effective performance involves more than finding the best way to motivate people to work. It says that effective performance will come about only when we develop a useful way to solve the organizational problem of How – Should Who – Manage Whom – to Do What. This is one of the things I have been searching for over the past twenty years.

My research, called the Level of Existence conception of man and his organized ways for living suggests that there are discernible and usable clues by which to organize the complex, systemic work relationship I have been describing. It says that:

The psychology of the mature human organism, his institutions for organizing, his styles of management and the like are emergent processes marked by the progressive subordination of older behavioral systems to newer, higher order systems. The mature human tends, normally, to change his psychology as the conditions of his existence change and so do his institutions for organizing and his styles of management. Each successive state or level is a state of equilibrium through which people, organizational ways, or styles of management pass on the way to other states of equilibrium.

When a person is in one of these states of equilibrium he has a psychology that is particular to that state. His acts, feelings, motivations, ethics and values, thinking, style of organizing, methods of managing and preferences for management are all particular to that state. If he were in another state he would act, feel, think, judge, be motivated, manage and prefer to be managed in a different manner.

A person may not be genetically or constitutionally equipped to change in the normal upward direction if the conditions of his existence change. He may move, given certain conditions through a hierarchically ordered series of behavior systems to some end, or the may stabilize and live out his lifetime at any one or a combination of levels in the hierarchy. Again, he may show the behavior in a predominantly positive or negative manner, or he may, under certain stressful circumstances, regress to a behavior lower in the hierarchy.

Thus, an adult lives in a potentially open system of needs, values and aspirations, but he often settles into what approximates a closed system. When he is centralized at any one level he has only the behavioral degrees of freedom afforded him at that level. Therefore, he will prefer work which is psychologically congruent with the level, will generate a style of management consonant with it, will organize activity in a way typical to the level and respond positively only to managerial principles appropriate to that level. And he must respond negatively to principles of management not appropriate to the level. (Graves, 1966 – modified for current purpose.)

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