I thought I would publish this - it is from a conversation that took place on the Global Organisation Linkedin page. Bill Williams started a thread. The topic was wide ranging but was about whether governments should play a larger role in regulatory practices. The discussion went to what level of work is required by a government and Level VII was discussed. Bill was arguing for a far more liberal interpretation of Jaques work - rather then a reductionist view - he said "Organisations are decision making systems. All managers need the
authority and trust to make many decisions which cannot be anticipated
or summarised into some kind of lean manufacturing inspired process
manual"-
Level VII is not sufficient to address issues of global markets, poverty,
resource and energy management, human rights, sustainability of the species,
global peace, food security are not Level VII issues. Work is about achieving goal directed
outcomes in an accountable hierarchy. While Level VII enterprises should be
concerned at ensuring many of these global issues are addressed, they are not.
They are tasked by their owners to make a profit. Here the problem lies. BP is an example. The banking system is
another...
Governments
are not held accountable for solving these issues either- they are elected and
struggle to set policies at the right level of work to be carried out by their
public service within their own borders.
Foreign policy is not much more effective when done serving national
interest and positions on big issue can be reversed by a newly elected
politician at the next sitting.
.
Governments
are not accountable hierarchies. The
public service is, but few work in more then a Level VII space (US four stars
general are classified Level VII execs, the CEOs of international orgs are also
classified thus; Australian Gov. Dept Secretaries are VI). Bill also talked about how the Australian government meddles and plays in Level III and wastes money without acting at the right level....
But
to go back to work complexity and levels of work - this means accountability
for addressing problems with time spans
of greater then 25 years and more like 50+ lie with not for profit global
focused organisations like the UN, International Courts of Justice, ILO, WHO,
Red Cross, Green Peace etc. And the
problem here is this is accountability but no authority as no national state
would give up its sovereignty at this stage for the common good.
Thus
Level VIII complexity may be about a fractal of Work Level VI, but it is not in
place yet.. it is emergent and for that we need a level of work beyond
corporations. It may be that it would emerge fully in NGOs and global forums
led by CEO's/ Chairs operating at Level n+1 in the next decade or two. So I don't think Level VII corporations will
play much more then at best an influencing role in this matter as I don't think
politicians will either. The truth of
the matter is that we have some wicked problems that requires thinking and
acting at a whole new level of work that is not around at the moment in our
current models.
Andrew Olivier
