Ciamos

Introduction:

This report is offered as a contribution to your work of stopping, taking stock and asking what and where next.

You will recall that the idea behind an Appreciation is that - for the mutual benefit of the person and the organisation - there should be as good a match as possible between the person’s capability and the responsibilities with which they are entrusted. When this balance prevails, the person experiences a flow of energy connecting him to his work and sustaining him. Although we were looking at this balance in the context of your present role, our prime purpose was to understand more about your capability in its own terms. By ‘capability’ we mean the way you exercise judgement in engaging with the uncertainty of making decisions; in short, what you do when you don’t know what to do.

Our research has shown that, where there is a mismatch between responsibilities and capabilities, both individual and organisation suffer. If someone is asked to carry more extensive responsibilities than their capabilities allow, he or she is likely to become stressed, to feel that the organisation is misusing them and even to become physically ill. On the other hand, if someone has capabilities greater than the scope of their responsibilities, he or she may begin to feel wasted and to look elsewhere for a focus for their energies.

You will remember that I used a model about the connections between work, organisations and people. The model suggests first that, in any organisation, there are different levels of work to be done; second, that there are differences between people in the rate of growth of their capability and, therefore, in the kind of career path that is most likely to keep them in a state where there is a flow of energy between them and their work.

Your current capability:

As you worked through the three parts of the Appreciation I was listening to your responses to the phrase cards and your narrative of the history of your working life and observing the approaches you used in your work with the symbol cards in order to come to a view about the level at which you would be most comfortable to work now.

On the basis of this evidence it seemed to me that your capability is current crossing the boundary between what we call ‘Levels IV and V’. As we discussed, the experience of being in transition often gives rise to the need to ‘take stock’ and also to a sense that ways of seeing the world and working in it that have been entirely satisfactory are no longer adequate. But the new, exciting ways that ‘beckon’ are not yet quite there to be delivered. It often seems to happen that, as a person’s capability crosses a boundary, they and/or their manager, run the risk of ‘pulling things too far, too fast’ with inevitable disappointment. In your case it seems more likely that you do not yet have complete confidence in the transition and there are few opportunities at work that would pull you ahead.

Although we talked about the levels in the Appreciation, I include some descriptions here because you may find it useful to refer to them as your capability establishes itself more clearly in Level V.

Level IV

Work

The theme is strategic development.

The work is to manage the relationship between the mission of the organisation (defined at Level V) and the means through which it is realised. This means designing and developing new systems to meet changing opportunities/demands and integrating them with established systems. Or, put another way, living within and maintaining the vision.

It is the first level where things may not be as they appear, e.g. although sales figures may be up, the facility may be in trouble and vice versa.

Capability

The theme is modelling.

The person gathers and interprets information and ‘noise’ from three distinct sources: what is happening inside the division; what is and what is not happening in the environment; what is happening and what is likely to happen at higher levels. This mass of information and ‘noise’ is dealt with by constructing models that relate general ideas and particular instances and move easily from one to the other. The art lies in using critical information skills and negative information to judge which detail to follow up, when and to what depth. “The art of working with ‘the big’ picture’ lies in judging which sketch to work on at which moment”. Uncertainties are seen as ambiguities that will eventually be resolved. This leads to a search for an underlying pattern - not yet known but knowable - and to a drive towards making original links between established bodies of knowledge which have not been previously connected.

In the search information is analysed; evaluated in the light of what is and what is not happening; possible courses of action are weighed against one another as equal alternatives until one slips imperceptibly under the other.

Gaps in knowledge are seen as if they were missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle - defined in outline but not immediately available.

Level V

Work:

The theme is mission.

The work is to realise the strategic intent of the enterprise. This is achieved by:

• guiding the strategic unit through the con-flicts caused by its impact on the environment;
• modifying the strategic unit to accommodate changes in the environment;
• maintaining the national positioning of the organisation;
• combining a number of Level IV entities in a single strategic unit.

Level V work has a dual perspective:

• outward to ensure long-term viability;
• inward to create and sustain optimal working conditions.

Capability:

The theme is weaving.

The approach is characterised by establishing relationships between previously unrelated material, creating general rules, and redefining fields of knowledge and experience.

Judgement-making is freed from the constraints of words, ideas and theories. It is based on a minimum of preconceptions and an awareness of how difficult it is to be free from them.

The person works within an open context and decides for himself the point at which it should be closed.

Gaps in understanding are perceived as a source of innovation and the basis for creating new knowledge which can reach well beyond currently defined fields and may have no obvious applications.

Uncertainty is welcomed and used as a resource – the person is likely to prefer to leave situations open and fluid rather than narrowing the field or flow of information prematurely.

The individual constantly shapes and reshapes interconnections within the organisation and with the environment, adjusting them in the light of anticipated rather than actual changes.

Your transition between ‘modelling’ and ‘weaving’ came through clearly from your first set of responses where you said “Problems can’t be solved unless you look at the metaposition . . . abstracts and concepts are too abstract or I would choose that.” In response to the second set you talked about turning a large amount of input into a coherent whole, pointing out that establishing new relationships and using words, ideas and theories are part of that. A further example came in your response to the seventh set where you spoke of the multidimensionality of any piece of work and the influences on it and went on in a clear shift from modelling to weaving to say “you can’t build a bridge until you know what’s on the other side . . . but you don’t know; it’s always conjecture”.

When you came to work with the symbol cards, you quickly realised that part of the rule was a combination of size and number and, despite some early confusion, came to the view that there was “a lateral link on colour”. It is unusual for people to pin down the constraint on the basic rule as clearly as you did and it was interesting to see that you did that by combining a level IV and a level V perspective. By this I mean that you were trying rules and testing them (IV) but commented at the end “I stayed within the confines and that made me distinctly uncomfortable.”(V). When I commented on your confident use of the blank card from which you were not receiving feedback, you replied that you were getting internal feedback because you were confident in your hypothesis (IV).

So you can see how these two parts of the Appreciation gave me similar ‘signals’.

The history of your working life:

The array of growth curves suggests that, when you were behaving as “a classic graduate”, your capability was already within level III, whilst your role seems to have been pitched high within level I. You took up your ‘spare’ capability by doing accountancy exams. But, when you moved on to Heinz as a cost analyst, it was into a role probably low within level II. In the next few years the gap between your capabilities and responsibilities narrowed but you became very aware of the fact that you had come up “too narrow a base” and joined treasury at Millbank as your capability became established in the middle of level III. The period between 28 and 32 when you were responsible for cash management seems to have given more opportunity for your capabilities and also coincided with the growth of your capability from connecting (Level III) to modelling (IV). This transition could be one way of thinking about the tensions between you and your immediate boss and the good relationship with your boss once removed. (There may also have been structural factors at work.)

Your “mixed feelings” about the work on the project team when you were 33 can be looked at in terms of your intrinsic capability seeing you quickly through gaps in your background so that you were able to come ‘up to speed quickly.

When you went to Kenya your capability was in the lower part of level IV and the work sounds as if it was in the lower part of level III with a fair amount of detail within level II. Although there were, undoubtedly, a number of factors at work, this considerable mismatch is likely to have been an important influence on how that situation developed. By the time you returned to England your capability was coming towards the middle of level IV and a very important point about the shift from III to IV is that it almost always takes the person away from any particular professional field of expertise. So your capabilities were being judged in terms of professional competence whilst you had, in effect, already outgrown that field. Within a year you were acting as a consultant from the centre and this probably gave an opportunity for high level III work with added value from a level IV perspective. however, I imagine that others were still trying to see your capability within a financial frame of reference at the same time as you felt less and less at ease with it.

Four years ago you joined ICI Imagedata and, since then, there have been some opportunities to use your capability to the full for short periods of time and in particular projects. But, as the company has changed, those opportunities have grown less and now you face the need to look elsewhere.

Your future capability:

As the chart shows and as we discussed, your capability is likely to continue to grow through level V and, as it does so, you will become more and more strongly aware of the ‘pull towards’ the level VI perspective which is, in essence, about ‘reading’ international trends, influences and opportunities as the context for forwarding the viability of a strategic business unit.

As your capability grows within level V you are likely to find that your feel for the interconnectedness of everything becomes stronger and that you are more and more aware that there is no truth, only conjecture. This will open up a new - and disconcerting - view of uncertainty that will lead eventually to an even greater joy in it than you have now.

The point is how and where to use this capability as it continues to grow through your forties and fifties. Something to bear in mind is that, whilst in the move from III to IV, you outgrew any particular professional field, in the move from IV to V you move to a perspective where it does not matter what kind of business you are running. The person at level V has to be apart from the business as he views it as a financial, economic entity and a part of it as he leads it as a social unit. Because he is apart, the nature of the business does not signify whilst financial skills do; not in actual deployment but as a context for interpreting the present and the future of the business and positioning it accordingly.

In that sense your background is very valuable but it will be important to demonstrate to others that it is now a part of your ‘portfolio’ rather than the whole story.

I think that another of your strengths is your awareness of the interplay between “logical and rational process” and your imaginative notions of the sub-conscious or semi-conscious process of moulding shapes and structural tensions - what you might call “a kaleidoscopic view” of decision-making”. Although it is my experience that most people approach decision-making in this way, few are able to come anywhere near putting it into words. Being able to do so could be a considerable help to others as well as yourself.

In combination with a better match between your capability and the challenges of your work, this sensitivity to the process of work could ease some of what you describe as the “interpersonal skills”. It could also help you to acknowledge the full extend of your current and likely future capability and to offer it to others in ways they could more readily use.

I hope the framework for thinking about your capability and situation has been of help. Please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss this report further. If you have time – and inclination – I would be very glad to know what you decide to do and how it works out.

Gillian Stamp
November 1991