What Organizations Can Do Themselves
People can become effective managers only if they are given opportunities to develop roles outside of their normal ones. So it is in the best interests of all organizations to give employees the opportunity to develop as many roles as possible. It is true that the short-run costs of this policy are quite real, and many profit-oriented organizations would consider such a practice a luxury. However, the long-run benefits will eventually outweigh them: People will learn new and practical skills, gain insight into the problems of their co-workers, and develop parts of their personalities that they do not ordinarily have an opportunity to express.
For example, since marketing is generally unaware of the realities of (P)roduction, and (P)roduction might not appreciate the pressures to which marketing must respond, exposing the staffs of each of those departments to the other’s experiences will ultimately have the effect of reducing conflict between the two departments.2
This technique has long been a policy in the Israeli military, where an officer cannot be promoted beyond a certain rank until he has held several lateral positions and can understand the organization from many different angles, from a staff person at headquarters to a line commander in the field.
An additional benefit of moving people outside their own departments is that they can sometimes be particularly helpful when they are divorced from a problem and therefore completely objective. (It is to avoid the blindness of subjectivity that most doctors do not treat their own families.) Thus, in the Adizes methodology, people from (P)roduction are assigned to facilitate the problem-solving of the people in marketing; people from marketing (I)ntegrate people in finance; and so on.
In-house Training and Development for (P) and (A)
Obviously, to learn (P) and (A) skills, employees should be assigned a task that requires the performance of those roles. These kinds of tasks are plentiful throughout any organization; sales and (P)roduction line work would both be appropriate. For the purpose of training, the only special requirements are that success or failure in accomplishing the task should be easily attributable to the trainee; and the task should be relatively short-term, so that feedback can be given without undue delay.
The (A) role requires systematization, order, details, power, operating under certainty, maintaining a certain level of predictability, enduring repetition, and enjoying routine. Tasks that require and reward those qualities are easily found in (P)roduction scheduling, accounting, and traditional personnel jobs. Imagine how an Arsonist might benefit from a short-term excursion into the domain of keeping the system running as a system.
In-house Training and Development for (E) and (I)
The traditional structure of large organizations has worked against the development of (E) in two ways: First, the hierarchy’s rigidity and bureaucratic tendencies have alienated (E)ntrepreneurs; and second, the structure has monopolized (E) tasks at the top of the pyramid, preventing (E) talents from developing anywhere else. Consequently, most organizations have a shortage of (E)s, and when (E) executives are needed, they must be hired from outside the firm.
Still, there have been a few attempts, using techniques like synectics and brainstorming, to teach managers how to introduce more imagination and innovation into their decision-making process: The Federal Executive Institute, for example, once offered an eight-week session in which the participants spent much of their time “just thinking.”3
Although (I) is not as endangered or as beleaguered as (E), its growth and development are not especially encouraged either. Organizations are goal- and task-oriented. They expect results, and in order to achieve results they depersonify interpersonal relations. Professional – rather than person-to-person – relations develop in organizations, and this impairs the (I) capability.
Developing (I) means exposing people to situations that test their ability to work with others. One has to hear, to listen, to feel, and to react empathetically One must develop an inner ear for what is not being said, as well as a sixth sense that can accurately intuit what was really meant by what was said.
Extra-organizational activities that are open to all employees, such as artistic activities and theater productions, have proved to be useful at (I)ntegrating people and teaching them to tolerate diversity. There is a bank I worked with in downtown Los Angeles that had a magnificent theater – which it used only for sales meetings. If the bank took the simple step of making the facility available for entertainment events, written, produced and acted by employees as a kind of extra-curricular or even volunteer project, the participants could add new dimensions to their lives, while at the same time hierarchical barriers would be breaking down.
In recent years, there has been a growing effort to help management cultivate the (I) function, utilizing methods developed by the behavioral sciences: Sensitivity training, the T-group, the Forum groups, and so on.4
The success rate of these efforts, however, has been mixed. Why? Research has shown that if the organizational climate is hostile to the training, or to the attitudes being fostered in the training, then the impact of such (E)- and (I)-related programs will be extremely limited.5
Thus, an important facet of the Adizes methodological approach is modification of the environment to permit the development of (I) and (E) – in other words to create an atmosphere in which new (I)ntegrative approaches and creativity are fostered and supported, allowing both to surge.
Delegation and Decentralization
The best vehicle for developing (E) and (I) is probably democratization and decentralization of organizations. The simple reason is that the more often people participate in decision-making, the more (E) and (I) they will develop and use.6
Before we delve further into this subject, we must clarify the distinction between delegation and decentralization. They are not synonymous. To delegate is to give subordinates the responsibility for making programmed decisions. This means that (P) and (A) can be delegated.
Decentralization involves more than the transfer of programmed duties. In a decentralized organization, there are certain spheres in which subordinates are expected to take initiative, to use discretion in decision-making, and to accept responsibility for their decisions. Decentralization necessarily implies more elbow room for nonprogrammed decisions, which are inherently unpredictable.
Decentralization, then, requires that (E) and (I) be nurtured on the lower levels of the organization. Because they are not programmable, (E) and (I) cannot be delegated. They have to be nurtured.
In-house Executive Training
Traditional executive training programs make the familiar mistake of focusing on individuals rather than teams. But, beyond learning the various characteristics and roles of management, an individual working alone can do little to improve himself. Working alone is working in a vacuum. Growth occurs as we work with others. Thus, traditional executive training is unlikely to effect real and significant changes.
In fact, graduates of executive training programs are often at a loss to explain the benefit of the experience. “I really can’t tell you what I applied,” they will say. “It must be here. … How I got my thoughts organized was the greatest benefit.”
Executive training should be in clusters of five or more people from the same organization: Teams that can work together to develop their cognitive know-how (P), their skill at evaluating and implementing systems (A), and their ability to work together to reach good decisions while avoiding destructive conflict (E) and (I).
In addition, executive training programs must be well rounded: No one discipline should be taught exclusively. Finally, cross-fertilization is essential if one is to become a member of a complementary team rather than a Lone Ranger, a Bureaucrat, an Arsonist, or a Superfollower.
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