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The span of time that can be
correlated to someone's decisions are more than likely to
dictate whether or not they will ever break the poverty
cycle--reinforced by decisions made continuously to resolve
crisis, rather than postpone gratification.
That is my hypothesis about time
span.
Time span was researched in depth
by Elliott Jaques and I came to understand time span as a key
component.
My summary of this concept, http://xray-delta.com/2011/08/31/elliot-jaques%E2%80%99-concept-of-time-horizon/ which
I encourage readers to study directly themselves from Jaques’ Requisite
Organization Revised Second Edition page pair 24, is:
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Time-span is the maximum target completion time of
the longest tasks in a role;
-
As the time-span of a role increases the “feeling of
weight of responsibility increases, and the greater the
complexity of mental processing (CMP) you need in order to
cope”;
-
The “greater your potential capability (PC), the
greater your working outreach in time – the further into
the future you can not only plan, but can carry those
plans through to the point of realization;”
-
That there exists a significant fact-base supporting
the use of time-span as the most useful and objective
measure of the level and complexity of work;
-
That any two roles with the same time-span
regardless of occupation have the same level of work;
-
That Jaques’ concept of complexity of mental
processing is not the same as “intelligence testing” or
IQ.
I was sitting here this morning and
watching as the texts were flying in requesting aid from our
extended MyPAL Network in the Philippines. And then a chat
from a MyPAL this morning:
I want to clean my teeth ... but
the money u give I give my parents ... soo my teeth not clean
I thought several things to myself,
as this is a story that occurs daily in the philippines, and I
suspect around the world with people who live in time, and not
with time.
I thought, how can this person
expect to help their family, if their health is compromised?
Don't they understand the best
thing they can do is stay healthy and productive, then help
their families?
I'm sure it was one of those daily
emergencies... That happen to people who live in a LONG
EMERGENCY... And that is poverty.
EVERYTHING in a poor person's life
is, or becomes an emergency.
Breaking this cycle requires a
long-term approach that almost NONE of these people have, even
the ones who have wired into them, a postpone gratification
complex, find it impossible to practice it, because in all but
a few (1-5%) of the cases, the inborn capability of postponing
gratification and thus being able to deny emergency--and that
is what people with this trait system have in common--is not
able to override existential needs.
The question is, at first, I tested
a few of these people for capability. Using the LDMA and my
own developmental process, I found most capable at stratum I,
a few capable at stratum II, and most mode 3 to mode 5, in a
handful of representative samples.
The capability was there to
function in longer term tasks.
YET, in everyone of the these
cases, living the long emergency takes its toll.
Most of these are people younger
than 30, although a few were less than 40.
In those that were more mature,
there was a marked improvement in the way they made decisions,
opposite of those who were younger. Yet, all seemed to be
driven by this LONG EMERGENCY, where everything in life is
last minute and dealt with only as fire-fighting.
THIS IS A TOUGH WAY TO LIVE.
So, our topic time span is very
critical to understand in problem formation, elimination and
solution.
It's not just capability, but the
scaffolding of that capability.
Jaques studied "...the concept of
'social systems as defense against unconscious anxiety'
(Jaques, 1951) which shed light on the close relationship
between organizational task (i.e. the main aim of an
organization, such as to produce, cure, etc.) and unconscious
group dynamics and how each can aid or distort the other." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Jaques
I believe he was on to something
and probably got distracted with dealing with the mechanism of
scaffolding away the variety of social ills that stem from
lack of "organization."
I think without a doubt, these poor
people lack, organization. I'm not talking about
"mise-en-place" or order, although it might be related, but
the scaffolding that exists to give people the opportunity to
take part in a social enterprise where they are rewarded
differentially according to the contribution they are asked to
make and guided by the strategy of work processes.
As I think through this poverty
cycle and the LONG EMERGENCY that is characteristic of it, I
see applications for our own western culture and how to begin
to fashion a way to scaffold people out of the poverty cycle.
Yet, FIRST identifying what is the
poverty cycle is key and that is why I felt that writing about
time span in a different application might provide some
insights into why time span is so important in the aspect of
watching people in time, on time, with time and over time, and
how they use time.
Over the past 25 years now, I
started with this idea to figure out what leadership is... And
I've come several circles around it, and still I admit, it's a
fleeting thing. Yet, clearly time span has to be an important
consideration.
I developed this idea of MITEAM (originally ITEAM, as
those were critical elements, or tools in the process of
leadership)...Money, Information, Time, Energy, Attention, and
Motivation. It's difficult to say which of those elements
maybe more leveraging, but I suspect in the ground of all
those figures...is TIME> and time span. |
