ManagementToolbox.com
Innovative
Management & Leadership Resources
Division of R. D. Cecil and
Company
Incorporated 1966
|
|
Home |
|
Strategic Management & Leadership
System ™ |
| Major Innovations |
Training Booklets/Manuals |
Management Tools |
|
Next-Generation Management,
Leadership, and Organization
Development |
Psycho-Synergy™ |
|
Past Clients
|
People's Comments
|
R. D. Cecil Bio
|
Economic
Development
|
Contact
|
R. D. Cecil’s
Major Innovative Concepts, Models, Methods, and Tools
Managerial/Leadership (Integrative) Process Model
This is a newer and more insight-generating model of the traditional
managerial/leadership (integrative) or POSDCORE process model, where the
basic functions are arranged into this sequence:
Plan-Organize-Staff-Direct-Coordinate-Report-Evaluate-Control).
This version goes several important steps beyond. First, it inserts
“analyzing” and “decision making” at appropriate points in the process,
showing that the managerial or leadership process is essentially the
analytic approach to problem solving. Second, it enables the
introduction of various fresh insights and innovative practices.
Importance
The model is actually the “core” of the processes portion of the
Unified Practice of Management™ models in the book,
Next-Generation Management Development. In addition to
illustrating that the managerial/leadership or integrative process is
actually the analytic approach to problem solving process, it also shows
that the analytic approach is used for structuring and increasing the
effectiveness of strategic and annual planning processes, “change
management” processes, project management processes, communication
processes, and learning processes (because planning and problem-solving
situations are major modes of learning).
Several related
figures, including the “Relationships Among the Processes” figure, also
show that―especially during team planning, problem-solving, and
decision-making processes―participants are almost certainly
performing
most if not all of those processes at the same time! So they
can use the same analytic approach to structure how they are
communicating and what they are learning during those major think-work
processes. It also means that
by
learning how to structure any one of these processes, one is also
learning the basics of structuring the others. And it further
means that
each time
one of these processes is taught, covered, and/or practiced, there is an
opportunity to relate it to the others and reinforce the learning and
skill development involved in all of them. That is an
extremely important aspect of effectively developing and reinforcing
practical management and leadership skills!
This
model is also significant because it helps explain that managerial and
leadership styles can be described and defined in terms of how superiors
interact with and behave toward subordinates while performing (or
getting performed) the integrative functions.
The Managerial Target®
![](img3.jpg)
Back in 1976, this was the very first circular rather than
grid-based managerial/leadership style model. Today it is the only
four- (rather than two-) dimensional model that is descriptive,
explanatory, and prescriptive all at the same time.
Importance
The “Target” has two important advantages over other
managerial/leadership style models:
First,
it is the only model that describes and explains personal influences on
styles in terms of levels of four groups of specific traits or inputs:
(a) task-oriented motive/attitudinal traits; (b) task-related
capabilities/competencies; (c) people-oriented
motive/attitudinal traits; and
(d) people-related capabilities or competencies. In other words, it
shows that various combinations of levels of both motivational factors
and capabilities influence managerial and leadership behavior (styles)
in various ways (in addition to many non-personal socio-technical
influences).
Second, a five-style model, it enables instructors to relate
managerial and leadership behavior to many other managerial and
interpersonal phenomena: (a) integrative functions; (b)
life positions identified by Berne (1961,
1963, 1964); (b) associated ego states (I’m OK, you’re OK) popularized
by Harris (1969); (c) interpersonal styles such as those indicated in
the Interpersonal Target™ (a version of The Managerial Target®);
and many others. In other words, by interrelating all these models and
concepts, it is possible to do what cannot be done with the situational
leadership model: provide insights into how all of the following
influence managerial and leadership behavior: (a) managerial and
leadership responsibilities; (b) levels of personal traits; (c)
attitudes about oneself, (d) attitudes about others, (e) attitudes about
what others can do for oneself, and (f) attitudes about one’s
relationships with others. [Imagine trying to interrelate all the models
just mentioned with the Situational Leadership four-style
(four-quadrant) grid model. It simply cannot be done.]
Advocacy of “High Task, High People” Style Over Situationalism
“One best style” versus
situationalism is a years-old debate. However, I think I have actually
figured out a way to deal with it. The discussion appears in full in my
forty-page, academically vetted article with the short title,
HT,HP v.
Situationalism [or the longer title,
Describing, Comparing, and Reconciling ‘One Best Style’ and
‘Situational’ (Contingency) Theories].
Situational leadership asserts that
there is no “one best” leadership or managerial style, so one must use
one of four possible styles (or some combination thereof) to fit
different situations―situations involving subordinates’ “maturity level”
with respect to each of their tasks. Regardless of the many significant
flaws identified in the article, situationalism has become and remains
very popular.
The
“High Task, High People” Approach and Its Importance
I have developed, and always
advocated using, what I call a “High Task, High People” (or “one best
style”) approach to managing and leading people. This team or
participative approach has been advocated by many management and
leadership gurus. The case for these “one best style” approaches is
fully described and explained in the above-mentioned article, which can
be summarized as follows:
As shown using Raymond Miles’
Human
Resources model, it is possible to behave in a highly
task-oriented and highly people-oriented manner at the same time. The
reasons: (a) while task-oriented behavior is aimed at producing high
productivity, it can also contribute to significant people-related
results such as high job satisfaction and morale; and (b) while
people-oriented behavior fosters people-related results such as high
satisfaction and morale, it
can also contribute to significant task-related results such as
high performance or productivity. So task-oriented behavior can
also be people-oriented, and people-oriented behavior can also be
task-oriented. (To a great
extent this amounts to applying the Golden Rule―or even Platinum Rule―in
organizations.) Thus, since it is both desirable and possible to behave
in a highly task-oriented and a highly people-oriented manner at the
same time, then
why not do
so?
Why not
always aim at being highly task-oriented for the sake of people as well
as for the sake of productivity, and at the same time aim at being
highly people-oriented for the sake of productivity as well as for the
sake of people?
Although I’m fully aware that promoting HT,HP and the underlying “one
best style” concept amounts to “swimming against the stream” these days
(because of situationalism’s popularity), I will continue to do so
because of the justification in my forty-page article. If it doesn’t
convince people, I don’t know what will.
Fully Integrated Management Training and Participative Organization Development Project
Studies
by ASTD have shown that people who receive formal (management) training
tend to forget about 85-90% of what they learned within around thirty
days. (Others’ estimates are similar.) If accurate, that means that
millions
upon millions of dollars are wasted on management education and
management and leadership training each year!
Because
some recognized those phenomena years ago, and because I had explored in
depth how many task-related, organizational, individual, social, and
outside factors all influence managerial and leadership behavior, back
in 1976 I designed a training program that can most powerfully be
used as the core of a fully integrated MD/OD project. The seven training
modules are presented for everyone from the top executive or leader down
through supervisory-level personnel (one module at a time). Following
each module, and using the concepts, principles, and practices covered
in it, bosses meet with their immediate subordinates―starting at the top
and working down―to participatively analyze and then plan what they should start doing, quit doing, or
do better to improve the influences of socio-technical factors affecting
their motivation, attitudes, knowledge, skills, interpersonal interactions, and
performance.
Importance
The integrated MD/OD project has brought about significant
changes in important socio-technical factors that have been (a) causing
organizational problems involving motivation, attitudes, interactions,
and performance, (b) impeding the development of a team, participative,
or HT,HP atmosphere and working relationships, and (c) undermining the
reinforcement of learning and skills development. In addition to vastly
improving boss-subordinate relationships, organization-wide performance
of integrative functions, and inter-departmental interactions and
cooperation, these are a few more things that it accomplishes and help
make it work so successfully:
A. Compared to other programs, it
covers more of what people really need to know in order to make what
they’ve learned actually work.
B. It gets everyone involved.
Since superiors know what their subordinates have learned, they can help
reinforce learning by setting a good example and by expecting
subordinates to apply and practice what they learned. And since
subordinates know what their superiors have learned, it motivates
superiors to apply and practice what they learned so as not to look
disinterested, uninvolved, lazy, or foolish to their subordinates.
The
Unified Practice of Management™ (UPoM) Model
More than one academician has called this model a “field
theory of management.” As mentioned above, a Harvard B-School
professor has said that “no
one has ever written (developed) anything even close to it.”
The reason:
It
interrelates―and then integrates within one (two-page) model―more than
one hundred major management and leadership concepts, processes, models,
methods, and practices. It takes into account all the following: (a)
managerial and leadership functions and process; (c) related analytic
approach, learning, communicating, and other mental processes; (c) how
managerial and leadership behavior (styles) relate to those processes;
(d) individual motivation and behavior
concepts
and principles; (e)
interpersonal relations concepts and principles; (f) systems thinking
(learning organization) practices; how knowledge management can be
effectively integrated into a strategic planning process; and much more.
It contains only those concepts, models, processes, and practices that
are compatible with each other. It shows how they all fit together, how
they are all directly or indirectly related to each other, how they
complement or supplement each other, how they can be used in logical
sequences, and how they can used together more synergistically and
powerfully than ever before to help maximize organization development
and performance.
Importance
to Business Schools
Business schools primarily teach marketing, production, finance,
IT, control systems, etc. Thus, they use capstone courses―generally
involving business games (simulations)―to get students using what they
learned about those functional areas in a less disjointed and more
integrated or systemic manner. However, very few (if any) capstone the
general management processes knowledge and “soft skills” such as
interpersonal, leadership, and facilitation skills (as well as advanced
analytic, planning, and decision-making skills). (Such skills do develop
to some extent, but more or less as a result of “incidental or
concomitant learning.”) The Unified Practice model, which summarizes
(capstones) my entire management/leadership training program (that was
designed to help develop thinking, interpersonal, and leadership
knowledge and skills), provides both a vehicle and a framework for doing
just that.
Since
the business world is clamoring for business schools to develop
students’ “soft skills,” you might think that the B-schools would almost
universally want to incorporate the education, training, and skill
development involved in those areas into a general management skills
training program (e.g., a one- or two-semester elective course). For
example, if business schools are going to teach team or participative
management, it would probably be a very good idea for them to create one
or more courses to develop the process knowledge and interpersonal
skills necessary for managers to effectively facilitate their future
subordinates’ participation in analyzing, planning, problem-solving, and
decision-making sessions. A few B-schools have begun to offer courses in
leadership, but, at least to my knowledge, only a very few offer courses
designed to actually develop the soft skills.
I
further believe
that
business schools should be presenting students and executive education
participants with a unified practice of management model (and
the applied system) that ties all those areas together―so that they
leave
with an
overall framework for (a) organizing what they have learned, (b)
applying it in a more integrated, synergistic, and powerful manner, and
(c) fitting anything new they might subsequently learn into a more
meaningful and useful framework.
Comprehensive and Detailed Checklists (Indices) of Factors or Variables
Back in 1968, so that I could perform analyses without having to revisit
many cases and case notes, I developed a five-page checklist of the
major factors covered in all my business school’s hundreds of
marketing cases and technical
notes. Over more than 30 years, that list evolved into the CD-ROM’s
186-page index or outline consisting of approximately 3,500 factors in
as many as eight categories, sub-categories, etc. [It contains not only
factors/variables, but also possible answers (more factors) to the
question, “What is our/the situation with respect to this category of
factors or this more finite variable?”]
It is a “portable analytic tool” that is more or less equal to
(and in many areas surpasses) all those B-school cases. I also developed
checklists or indices of factors involved in production/operations,
finance, and organizational behavior.
General
Importance
Marketplaces and organizations are phenomenally complex. Literally
thousands (probably millions) of factors or variables are operating in
them, the net effect of their countless interactions being whatever has
happened or is happening. Not surprisingly, then, I am fervently against
applying the KISS Principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) when performing
organizational analysis, planning, decision-making, and problem-solving
processes. (In
my
opinion,
KISS has hindered
professional
management
for
about
forty years.)
I can even refer to studies
containing convincing evidence that applying the concept of Occam’s
Razor (“the simplest solution is usually the best”) more often than not
leads to inadequate and faulty analyses, flawed plans or solutions, and
poor decisions. [After all, William of Occam (1287-1347) was
a theologian who knew nothing of multi-variate systems and their
analyses.]
Unfortunately, human beings’ (even experts’) knowledge of factors or
variables in any area is limited. No one can know all the possible
variables that might be considered and found to be causal or influential
in a given situation. This, I believe is
one of the
two major mental constraints on our ability to analyze, plan, and make
decisions as effectively as we might. One of my answers:
use extensive checklists of factors to help people think
about many potentially causal or influential factors that they would not
otherwise think about―so that they “line up all the right ducks” first
before pushing numbers associated with the wrong or less important
variables.
Potential
Importance to B-Schools
Business schools primarily teach marketing, production, finance,
IT, control systems, etc. Unfortunately, MBA grads will soon forget the
hundreds of marketing (and other) cases they studied. (Fortunately,
however, they will probably retain skills associated with the use of the
methods and tools they covered.) All those cases dealt with many issues
and problems―all of which involved (“revolved around”) and
could be
reduced to specific factors or variables (or categories
thereof). The types of checklists I developed over so many years are the
kinds of
practical
tools that MBAs should be able to take with them when they leave their
school.
Using specialized checklists of factors for various functional
areas (marketing, organizational behavior, etc.) is a matter of
transforming management knowledge services (education, training,
consulting) into management knowledge products. That
transformation is occurring at an accelerating rate.
Importance
of the Marketing Checklists in Particular to Many Companies
A number of small- to medium-size companies have been interested
in the facilitation of their strategic planning processes. Partly in
order to develop their sales personnel into marketers, they have been
willing to have me use the marketing and external factors checklists to
facilitate comprehensive and in-depth analyses (meta- and
micro-analyses) of their industry, marketplace, business environment,
and marketing programs and practices. The results have always surpassed
their expectations.
In many other companies, however, the marketing and sales people
have resisted such a project. The reasons they cited were not
necessarily the reasons that some acknowledged later: First, some were
afraid that the analysis and planning process would uncover something
that they themselves should have thought of or recognized. Second, some
were afraid that, by doing a thorough analysis and identifying all the
things that they should be (should have been) doing, they would make
themselves unnecessary. (Actually, the opposite has always been the
case. By identifying so many possible strategies, tactics, and big and
small projects that could be implemented, they would actually have been
providing themselves with perpetual job security.) Third, even though
many managers are being paid the big bucks to think, many just do not
have the will and/or time to think that much. (As Henry Ford once said,
“Thinking is the hardest work there is; which is the probable reason so
few engage in it.”) And fourth,
many did not want to be away from their job for, say, twenty days over
several months, even though they would be using that time to perform the
analytic, planning, and decision-making aspects of their jobs more
effectively and beneficially than ever before).
Zero-Base (Meta-)Systems Analysis
(methodology, tools, materials, and facilities)
[Please first read the article entitled
Qualitative and Diagrammatic
Knowledge Bases. Then read 0-Base (Meta-)Systems
Analysis, which is fully titled, Performing
‘Zero-Base Systems Analyses’ (ZBSAs) to Maximize Strategic Planning
Effectiveness and Develop a "Learning
Organization on Steroids.”]
Operations researchers, city planners, and others already do
analyses of large systems of variables for their own purposes. However,
people in marketing, human resources, and other less
quantitatively-oriented areas are far less inclined to do so. Our
zero-base meta-system analysis approach is for them. This approach is
described in more detail in the articles cited above.
General
Importance
For the reason just mentioned, I developed my own consulting and
facilitation methodology. It involves using the detailed factor
checklists mentioned above to analyze situations, and, in the process,
develop Qualitative Information Bases (QIBs) consisting of essentially
unstructured tacit information just “harvested” from people’s heads.
(Again, checklists help compensate for people’s limited knowledge of all
the possible factors they might consider.)
It also involves using a large (e.g., 256 square foot) TeamThink
Wall™ along with the checklists to develop Diagrammatic Knowledge Bases
(DKBs) that visually present both qualitative and quantitative
information. (Especially if you’re going to get people thinking about
hundreds upon hundreds of factors and associated facts, you must provide
a means for them to deal with the
second
major mental limitation―the mind’s inability to handle more than five to
nine factors or bits of information at a time.)
My second
remedy: a wall diagram such as the one pictured below, which can display
an enormous amount of both qualitative and quantitative information,
thereby keeping one’s mind from having to juggle, interrelate, and
otherwise deal with it on its own. Indeed, it
enables
people to handle hundreds of times more pertinent information than ever
before. And visual tools also help to record and reinforce
the learning that is taking place.
![](TeamThink%20Wall_image002.jpg)
Potential
Importance to Business Schools
Business schools and/or their executive education divisions could
construct “integrated thinking/learning centers” where giant walls (like
the pictured whiteboard wall) would be used to handle whole
meta-systems of factors (e.g., full-blown marketplace analyses rather
than the limited number of factors in most marketing cases or problem
situations). They might even use 256 square foot rear projection walls
to establish teleconference-enabled “virtual campuses” around the
country or the world.
Potential
Importance to the Government and Military
Entities such as the White
House military and healthcare assistants, thinktanks, anti-terrorist and
intelligence agencies, and others could use specially-designed rear
projection walls (perhaps using the projection system I designed) to
help visually analyze phenomenal amounts of information in one
continual, 256 square foot Diagrammatic Knowledge Base. [In fact, I have
already developed prototype DKBs of, for example, (a) world-wide and
theater military operations (for joint commands); (b) world-wide and
domestic terror threats (for ODNI, etc.); and (c) disaster preparedness
and management (for FEMA).]
Over about one full year, I
also developed several spreadsheet databases of healthcare industry data
and an absolutely enormous, computerized Diagrammatic Knowledge Base of
the entire healthcare industry and its external environment. It shows 81
different types of entities, major relationships among those types, the
major organizations or companies within the 81 types, factors or
variables relating to those entities and organizations, and considerable
data associated with all those factors. The amount of both qualitative
and quantitative information presented visually in this diagram is
staggering. Nonetheless, it would help people analyze (handle) hundreds
of times more information during planning, problem-solving,
decision-making, or policy-making processes than ever before. Given the
mind-boggling complexity of all the healthcare problems facing the
country, such a tool could be extremely helpful.
I should probably mention that some people have expressed concern
that the amount of information on these wall diagrams will absolutely
overwhelm people. NOT TRUE!
Because, from the very beginning of the analytic and diagramming
process, the analysts and planners involved actually participate in
deciding what information to show and how to diagram it. Therefore,
since they are
totally
familiar with everything on the wall, they are eventually
able to sit back, consider what’s going on and why, and figure out what
to do about the many factors or variables involved. They can also
consider what might happen (and ripple throughout the meta-system) if
(a) they were to implement some planned action, (b) some event were to
occur as a result, and/or (c) something outside the organization might
possibly occur. In other words, they are also able to consider many
possible scenarios (of acts and events) and minimize having to deal with
the
unanticipated consequences of actions that people
euphemistically call “unintended consequences.”
Just
imagine all the complex, knotty problems that tools such as these could
help the country―and even the world―solve far better than ever before!
Contact Information:
R. D. Cecil and Company
1151 Middle Road — Suite B
Dixon, Illinois
61021-3904
Sales and Support
Telephone:
1-815-312-2571
Hours: 10:00 A.M. to
5:00 P.M. Central (Chicago) Time, Monday through Friday
Fax: as above, but call
ahead
E-mail:
rdc1@rdcecil.com
Copyright © 2023 by R. D. Cecil and Company
Last edited or revised:
3/02/2023