Requisite organization (RO), a term and methodology developed by Elliott Jaques, refers to a total system for Effective Managerial Organization and Managerial Leadership for the 21st Century.

One of the most significant findings of Elliot Jaques’s work was to discover that the need for hierarchies in organizations is explained by human nature itself. To understand this, we must first analyse and compare two key aspects: (a) the complexity of the role or job, on the one hand, and (b) the complexity of mental processes, on the other.

Let’s start with the complexity of the role. How do we know how complex a job is? From the theoretical approach of Elliot Jaques’ Requisite organization, job complexity is measured by the Time-Span of Discretion (TSD) of the longest assignment. In other words, what is the longest-range task the position requires? What time-span does this decision cover? This time distance is the measure of the tolerance to ambiguity required of those who work.

The TSD constitutes then an objective measure of the subjective sensation of psychical effort and is directly related to the second aspect mentioned above, which refers to the mental complexity that a person can handle performing the task. Here the key question is what is the maximum time in the future in which a person can work without direction, using his/her own discretionary judgment (or discernment) to achieve a certain goal (autonomy)? One way of observing the complexity of mental processes is through judgement and decision-making.

At work, people perform various taskswith different levels of complexity that require a corresponding level of mental processing. Mental processes have to do with the ways of processing information. We cannot observe the process, only its effects.

According to the research work of Elliot Jaques and Katrhyn Cason, there are four methods through which people process information.

• Declarative: unconnected arguments (or-or)
• Accumulative: linked arguments (and-and)
• Serial: cause-effect sequences (if-then-then)

Parallel: cause-effect sequences – linked and interwoven (if-and-only-if)(Jaques, 2004: 82).

These four processing methods are repeated at each level of information complexity. The complexity of the information can be divided into 5 levels.

Pre-verbal: It represents a concrete reasoning, and it is similar tothat of childhood.

Concrete verbal: It refers to ideas and words linked to the physical and concrete world, that of objects, such as, for example, the language of children under 12 years of age.

Symbolic verbal: It is the language of adults (not everyone). Ideas and words no longer need to refer to the concrete world of objects. For example, detectives lookfor ‘clues’…

Abstract conceptual: It is the kind of thinking and language required to be able to work at the high levels of a company. Words refer to ideas and not to objects. These intangible words can be used to find solutions only if at the end of their journey they reach specific objectives. That is, through abstract words we must be able to form coherent propositions and concrete examples.

Universal: it refers to the creation of new types of… (societies, cultures, values, systems, etc).

The following chart represents the complexity of mental processing in relation to the complexity of the tasks.

Chart 1. The human nature of organizational hierarchies.

PEOPLE Complexity of mental processes		ORGANIZATIONS Complexity of roles and tasks
Parallel Serial Acumulative Declarative	Universal	+ need to discriminate association from organization- Management teams. + need to discriminate the work of the shareholders from the management- Multiple shareholders. TSD: 20 years ++
Parallel Serial Acumulative Declarative	Abstract Conceptual	CommandTeam From position to organization-Senio Leadership years ++ TSD: 5 years to 10 years
Parallel Serial Acumulative Declarative	Symbolic verbal	Assisted Direct Command – Supervision Level Delegated direct command – Level of complexity tolead. TSD: 1 year to 5 years
Parallel Serial Acumulative Declarative	Pre-verbal and concrete verbal	Direct Command. Operationalemployees. TSD: 1 day to 1 year

Source: Own elaboration basedon Jaques (2004) y Penna (2008).

It is of interest to return to the main finding of Elliot Jaques regarding human nature and hierarchies in organizations. In the lowest hierarchies or strata we find jobs whose time-span of discretion does not exceed one year. For example, supermarket cashier. The type of mental processing is pre-verbal or concrete and that defines in some way the ways in which instructions are given and received. On the contrary, in the case of the Board of Directors that must plan and think for a period of over 20 years, the mental processes require a higher level of abstraction and the type of interaction in this sector will take place under the same conditions as well.

In general terms, this implies that the hierarchies or the promotion of the people in the organization should contemplate two fundamental aspects: (a) the level of complexity of the role measured by time-span of discretion (TSD), or in other words, the longest decision and therefore more risky and (b) the complexity of the mental processes that people can handle.

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Asesoría

En VG & Asociados acompañamos a las empresas y sus líderes en el desarrollo de sus habilidades de liderazgo y habilidades blandas en general desde el enfoque del Aprendizaje Organizacional. Nuestra propuesta busca potenciar las capacidades subyacentes de las personas en proceso de capacitación, invitándoles a ser parte activa del proceso.