Requisite Organizations / A New Way to Look at Reporting Relationships
April 2nd, 2008 by Lois MelbourneThink for a minute about your company’s hierarchy. When you look at the very successful relationships of who reports to whom, you’ll likely find something that appears commonsense after you identify it – but not highly pondered when an organization builds its structure. Successful relationships between managers and their teams can be tied to the similarity in the timeline scope of their goals and objectives.
The question to ask is: what is the thought horizon, or goal horizon, for each manager and team member? In other words, if the boss’ objectives, goals, even compensation, are tied to events and plans that take a year to achieve, can they effectively relate and manage people whose objective is that their goals be met by the end of the day? For example, should the bank branch manager manage the teller whose primary measurement is a balanced till at closing time?
This logic is beautifully structured by groups following a practice typically called the Requisite Organization (RO), defined and developed by the late Elliott Jacque. Organizations like Rio Tinto, Ford, Novus, the U.S. Army, and many others, use this and other methodologies supporting the Requisite Organization, as well as the Stratified Systems Theory.
The RO system provides a framework and details for refining your corporate structure to maximize efficiency. The Global Organization Design Society is an association dedicated to bringing RO to companies. The GO conference draws members from all four corners of the earth to share ideas and exchange benchmark data on their success. Some organizations dive into the practice to the letter of the theory, while others adopt or adapt many of the best practices.
Wikipedia contains a concise definition of the Requisite Organization theory. Elliott Jacque has written a number of books, as have the Society members, to help you on this quest.
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