I am sharing your post with my readers as one of my top five blog picks for the past week as can be found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2008/09/the-rainmaker-f.html

Be well!

Thanks for the comment. I remember reading Gillian’s piece a while back. Maybe I should check it out again.

In your example of bosses not knowing what they want, it sounded like what they wanted was the production of ideas and options, which, to me, could still be an explicit assignment.

But I don’t know that everything I write is right. (Glenn always says if you can’t think of at least three ways to spell any word, you aren’t very creative.) My son spells the same word three different ways within one writing assignment.

Good to hear from you. Hope all is right with your world!

Regards,

Michelle

Jack

Yes this is critical stuff and well done for keeping on the case.

My experience is that this stuff, and the applicaton of tasking changes along with the Luc Hoebeke domains. So, if I am write in my thinking, 1-3 is not the same as 4-5 which is not the same as 6 upwards. Importantly, the majority of folk in employment are engaged in 1-3 work. So the clear model that you suggest is very helpful. Further up?????

Often bosses want a problem explored but are not sure precisely what they want. Over the years, I have had an abundance of tasks in which bosses have said stuff like ‘I will know it when I see it’. So you produce your ideas and, hopefully, one of them gets close to or hits the target and triggers them to greater certainty in their own judgements. For me, this was satisfying. I felt that I had contributed to the debate, even if not accountable for the final decision. Essentially I was being consulted.

Of course, the negative aspect of this is when bosses neglect their duty to prescribe the task for which they are going to hold their subordinate accountable.

Gillian Stamp has developed a penetrating set of understandings of these challenges. In her model of The Tripod of Work, Gillian contrasts the behaviour of building a trusting environment through Tasking, Trusting and Tending with the situation when different approaches are adopted.

I recommend that anyone interested in applying the Levels of Complexity principles looks at this section of her Blog:

http://www.gillianstamp.com/?page_id=26

Jack