"... Like Talking to Gordie Howe"

(Taken from the book "THE END OF MANAGEMENT ALCHEMY: Some Fun With the Findings of Elliott Jaques and How Requisite Organization Began, 2015)

I grew up in Saskatchewan, on the Canadian prairies; so naturally, my heroes were hockey players. From my Uncle Art who was a local senior hockey star (when he wasn’t at work in a managerial hierarchy at the grain elevators), to Saskatchewan-born Gordie Howe, and later, to the “Great One”, Wayne Gretzky, who hails from Ontario – but that’s okay.

So I’m driving southeast down Saskatchewan Highway # 33, past the 2 landmark elevators my home town of Creelman, on a Monday morning in the winter of 1991. C.B.C. radio is covering the Gulf War. And I’m thinking: is this war a mistake? Are we entering into another Viet Nam, or what? Is this a conflict that will go on and on, with thousands of casualties, or other negative consequences?

I reach the project we’re working on, and by the end of the work week, the U.S. smart weapons and the strategic leadership behind them have virtually ended that phase of the war. “How did they do that?”, “How did the U.S. military improve so much since Viet Nam?”, “How did they get so good?” said the engineers and others around the coffee pot at the 300 megawatt coal-fired power station project.

“I don’t know; but it really is amazing” said our top site boss, Construction Manager Ken as he left the coffee room.

“I think I know at least part of the answer,” I told Ken, after following him to his office.

“What’s that?”

“It’s this Elliott Jaques guy I’ve been telling you about. He’s spent a lot of his time in the last 10 or more years with the U.S. Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff as I understand it.”

Ken seemed more interested now. We chatted a bit, and he asked that I try to get a hold of Jaques to see if there was a video or something that could help us learn more – that maybe Jaques and his ideas had something that would contribute to us finishing the project on-time and on-budget.

So I think things over and I figure that maybe my colleague, George Reilly, out in British Columbia has the phone number for a guy, Maurice Hecht, at the University of Toronto, who had been a school-mate of Dr. Jaques’ when the two were doing their respective under-graduate work. And just maybe, Elliott’s former school-mate will have a phone number for Jaques. So I phone B.C. and get the Toronto number. I phone the Toronto gentleman, Maurice Hecht; and after I explain who I am, what I’m up to and so on, he gives me a number he thinks is in the Washington, D.C. area, and I dial.

As the phone rings, I think: I’ll probably get an assistant, who will put me on hold at best; and will leave a message, that will never get returned, and like that.

“Hello” I hear a voice say, and I think it’s that of only non-hockey playing hero I’ve had (as I had heard an audio tape of Jaques being interviewed in Regina, circa 1978).

“Elliott?” I reply, thinking I’m an idiot for not saying: ‘Dr. Jaques’.

 “Yes” says Elliott, with a gentleness to his voice that reminded me of my paternal grandmother.

“You’ll have to excuse me”, I respond, “but for me, this is kind of like talking to Gordie Howe, if you know what I mean”.

(I’m thinking “Mott, you idiot! Gordie Howe REALLY)!

“Well, having grown up in Toronto, I do know who Howe is”, replied Jaques.

So I go on for a while about how his book, “A General Theory of Bureaucracy” was a masterpiece, and that it and some of his other books and articles had clarified so much for me about life at work in larger organizations.

“So you are into Stratified Systems Theory?” he inquired.

“Oh yes, in a big way” I said. “And I’m working for a fellow here who is interested in learning more too. He has asked that I try to get a video or something to help us digest more. We want to consider applying more of your teachings at this project.

Elliott said that he believed something was in the works. So he gave me the name and contact information for his colleague Kathryn Cason. He said she would have more information on when the video would be available and how to get it.

So began a major turnaround in the fortunes of the project we were toiling away at. We soon got the video, and Ken and I watched it again and again. Between watching and reading more of Elliott’s work, we began on a small scale to apply some of the principles to the work on site. The owner of the project, who employed Ken and had my company under contract to do labour relations work, were constructing and commissioning a $600 million, 300 megawatt coal-fired power station. Past the half-way point in the 4 year project, we were on target for a $100 Million overrun and a one-year-late timeline if the same sluggish performance continued. Ken started with the “de-selection” of one employee, and followed up with “talent pool development” (and the ‘sitting on a log’ with his subordinates-once-removed”). Then there were attempts to educate the top managers of some of the key contractors on site. And while it did not all “sink in” in all cases, they knew that, as “the owner is God”, they’d better follow or face his wrath. So some key contractors made some personnel changes that saw more and more people overcome the straw boss syndrome, and work for a real manager. I have never seen such an abrupt turnaround: as this group of up to 880 people, working for multiple employers, raced to an on-time, on-budget completion in the following 18 months. Talk about fun!

The plan, as we started was to utilize Requisite Organization principles to help construct a second 300 megawatt coal-fired unit, and then to construct a nuclear power station utilizing the latest technology. Also, the nuclear plant was to see modularized construction technology, with modularized components coming from such places like Babcock & Wilcox’s new plant at Melville, Hitachi in Saskatoon, and many other cities (large and small) around the province. So the first nuclear station would have been manufactured and assembled in Saskatchewan within the 14 to 16 year time horizon that the owner’s Executive Vice President had established; then Saskatchewan would have continued to manufacture modules to be assembled at sites in Asia, Europe and you name it. In the words of that EVP, “It would have done everything for business in Saskatchewan that oil and gas had done for Alberta – and more!”

Saskatchewan, particularly the southern half, is known for harsh winds, sometimes with accompanying snow and/or dust. The political winds can also be harsh. In 1992 the provincial government changed, and shortly thereafter the second coal-fired plant was shelved, and the nuclear deal that had been signed was torn up.

But a rewarding relationship with Kathryn Cason and a host of other folks who had been bitten by the Requisite Organization (R.O.) bug was born.  It started on the phone with Kathryn in the evenings from site. She soon put us onto the video – a production first done as a live satellite feed from George Washington University. Kathryn talked about a group of people who were planning a 7-day working seminar with Jaques in Toronto. In early 1993, I attended what was to be the first 7 of 22 days spent sitting and absorbing the first and only true management science at the feet of my first and only non-hockey player hero, together with a conference room full of like-minded colleagues.

It’s NOT About Personality

During that 7-day session and other days I spent with Elliott, people attending the sessions would press Jaques on special personality traits of certain types that they felt were essential to people being effective managerial leaders. Names of business leader after business leader would be thrown up to scrutinize for their special traits and/or characteristics, their charisma, their management style, and so on.

Jaques would deny that personality had anything to do with it. “There is absolutely nothing special about so-and-so. Personality traits, charisma, or whatever you point out has nothing to do with it.” He’d go on to say that what is required is that the person has the capability to handle the level of complexity of work in the role. And that there are other things the person needs as well:

-  The person must value the work (i.e. – value managing people);

-  He/she must have the necessary skilled knowledge to do the work; and

-  The person must not be hampered with serious temperamental difficulties (such as psychosis, etc.)

“Otherwise, there is absolutely nothing special about him or her”.

Those 7 days were significant for me. To be involved with work-in-progress that could have such far-reaching and positive effects on the way companies organize for productivity and real human satisfaction is unparalleled in my life to that date. At the end, we participants were asked to stand individually and give our thoughts on the experience.

I rose and said “It’s been a great pleasure to finally meet and work directly with ‘the Wayne Gretzky of Management Thinking” (which is not so different than the “Tiger Woods of Management Thinking”, if you get my meaning).

It brought laughter and applause from the mostly Canadian participants. But across the room I saw Elliott shrug his shoulders and mouth the words “Who’s he?”

For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, there was “nothing special” about Elliott Jaques either. I mean, how could he not know of the “Great One”, he was only in the process of shattering every scoring record in the National Hockey League? Disgusting!  There was “nothing special” about Jaques. Elliott Jaques was perhaps just your everyday Stratum VIII; or probably Stratum IX person (with an Intention-Time of 100 years or more, ) who hadn’t learned jack about hockey since he was a teenager and watched Syl Apps star for the Toronto Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens.

After each session with Elliott over the following 10 years, I would try to make a living doing R.O. work; but with no luck. In 2003, after Elliott’s death and more failed attempts to pick up some R.O. consulting work, I saw a job advertisement to work in a Safety role in North Western Saskatchewan.

After getting the job I decided to try and forget all about this R.O. stuff; and how many thousands of work organizations, and millions - if not billions - of people it could positively affect around the world.

Now and then I would google Elliott Jaques, R.O. and SST to see if there were any new developments. A blog by Forrest Christian titled “Why Requisite Organization Will Not Survive” started me back to the point where “No! I’m not going to blank this essential element out”. For, it can, and someday will, positively affect so many people, by building more and more trust-inducing work organizations.

Late in 2010, I took a major step back into the mainstream of the science of Requisite Organization, by meeting up again with Kathryn Cason, Rebecca Cason, and Alison Brause near Baltimore, along with a group of other RO-interested folks.

As an exercise, Rebecca asked us to complete the statement: “Requisite Organization is like ____________, because ________________”.

I immediately stated to the group that: “Requisite Organization is like getting pickled, because you can no longer go back to being a cucumber.”

I hope I have tweaked your interest enough that you will commence (or continue) your own process of getting pickled.

Just believe me when I say: you will never want to be a cucumber again.