Archiv der Kategorie: Management

Here you find topics like planning, organization and leadership.

Why should I?

In the egotope of one’s own small apartment, everything is determined by the interests of the one resident. He doesn’t have to coordinate with anyone, doesn’t have to permanently consider other people and only cares when he is in the mooed for it. Different lifestyles, attitudes and tastes encounter in the sociotope of a flat-sharing community. The perceived obligation to take care of the common living space can be very different from one to the other. In the bathroom and the kitchen the different sensitivities collide. One remedy is nowadays the labelling of food and drinks with the name of the owner, in the hope of rediscovering the personal purchases when needed. Fate hits when it comes to dishes. As soon as the first dirty plate remains, other used plates, glasses, knives, forks and spoons accumulate at the speed of light. Why would anyone care about it?

Familial and cultural differences result in dissimilar thresholds of irritation, which, as soon as they are exceeded, lead to someone caring, because the personal emotional burden becomes too big.

  • Assignment
    The official trigger is a temporary assignment of the task. As soon as someone is obliged to fulfil an affair, for example in business in the form of a job description or a direct order, when the authorities are sufficient to deliver the required results in a determined quality, the person in charge has little room to leeway to avoid it.
    The formalized assignment with the clear description of the task is the common way.
  • Career reasons
    The assumption of unpopular tasks can result from career advantages for the responsible persons, which are sufficient to devote them courageously to the activity.
    The calculated assignment uses ambition and creates a win-win situation.
  • Interest
    The intrinsic stimulus of dedicating oneself to a task arises naturally, when the content satisfies a particular interest. And every task can be interesting – even generally unpopular routine tasks. The
    intrinsic assumption of a task based on passion boosts the well-being of the contractor.
  • Public spirit
    A special interest comes from the altruistic drive to take on tasks in order to make the world a better place.
    The altruistic drive to do a job for humanity’s benefit strengthens the fulfiller’s self-esteem.
  • Boredom
    As soon as the inner clock runs slower and slower, time doesn’t want to pass, you get cabin fever and you can’t find anything better to do, than boredom is worse than any unpopular task.
    The distracting performance of otherwise unattractive tasks shall expel the time of the executer.
  • Psychological strain
    If the current situation is so awkward that the level of suffering rises above the personally acceptable degree, this leads quickly to the removal of the disturbing problem.
    The curative takeover of a task takes place autonomously in order to eliminate the acute „pain“ by completing the task.

Bottom line: There are tasks that require the active treatment. The reasons to take care of it are manifold. They range from a temporary assignment, are based on interest, calculated career reasons and altruistic public spirit, to avoiding boredom and solving personal suffering. The diversity of the characters leads in most cases to the handling of the task. The first is in extreme cases the last possibility – the assignment. By answering the question „Why should I?“ the implementation starts – sooner or later.

The eternal answer

Just as the water is seeking its path, sometimes almost turning in circles, but always finding its way down into the valley, the same way companies are looking for the organizational line-up that achieves the balance between flat and steep structures. Two findings provide a clear framework. On the one hand the Dunbar number describes the number of people with which someone can keep in touch with – actually 150 or between 100 and 250. If the number of members exceeds that number, the group should be split up in order to ensure functioning. On the other hand, the Miller’s law determines the ability of humans to process simultaneously 7plusminus2 information units (so-called chunks). If more than nine chunks appear at the same time, the risk of overlooking or doing something wrong automatically increases. This determines the framework for the eternal answer of the design of an organization.

Based on the Dunbar number and the Miller’s law there are possibly a maximum of four layers1) and a maximum span of control of nine2). In individual cases it is not the calculability that determines the structure, but the boundaries become clearer. In addition, the span of control is influenced by the following aspects.

  • The abilities of the protagonists
    The executives, who have an appropriate understanding of their tasks, a suitable toolbox and sufficient empathy master larger spans of control. In addition, specialized and ambitioned employees make leadership easier.
  • The complexity of the tasks
    Simple tasks that are clearly described, seldom change, allow routine and require little interaction with others, promote larger spans of control. Increasing interaction with other areas as well as continuously changing influences and requirements limit the span of control.
  • The geographical distribution of the protagonists
    If all participants are sitting in a room, it allows a maximum span of control. The further the members are apart, e.g. distributed globally between Japan and the west coast of the USA, than the span of control will decrease due to tougher reconcilement down to a minimum.
  • The available governance
    A Governance described in sufficient detail allows for wider spans of control. It is not a matter of regulating everything in detail, but of outlining the decisive aspects in such a way that everyone can follow them and develop a common mindset – including principles, alignment ways, basic understanding and clear roles (task, authority and responsibility).
  • The predominant management style
    The self-understanding of the managers includes above all their comprehension of how the interaction between management and employees has to happen. The more authoritarian the management style, the shorter the leash on which the employees are led – which leads to a lower span of control due to the performance limits of the managers. New approaches are based on self-organization, i.e. employees take over management, coordination and control – which enable a larger span of control and flatter structures.

Bottom line: The eternal answer of the span of control is not only theoretically clear – k+kn<=150; where k is the span of control and n the number of at least two hierarchical layers. In daily business, the span of control has settled at five to nine – higher and lower outliers confirm the rule. The number of levels is mitigated by the division into semi-autonomous business units, as soon as a certain number of members (more or less 150) is exceeded, new units are formed. Companies that operate outside this framework should critically review their performance – How fast do we make decisions? How agile are we? What friction losses do we detect? What is the contribution of our structure? The measures derived from this include organizational adjustments, according to the eternal answer

1) Using four levels, a span of control of three is possible ( 3*3*3*3+3=84).
2)  Two levels and a maximum span of control of 9 are possible (9*9+9=90).