Complexity of Thought and Planning Time Span

There are multiple dimensions of talent including personality traits, IQ, EQ, desire, knowledge and experience.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
Share

All roles within the organization require a different mix.  Leaders must design their organizational structures to support their strategies, be able to evaluate people effectively then provide the training and coaching required to make them successful in their roles. 

Leadership Tools: Complexity of Thinking and Planning Capability Levels.

One of the critical dimensions is what Elliott Jaques called “Time Span of Discretion” which is essentially a combination of:  

  • Thought Complexity:  How many variables can a person comfortably work with?  At the simplest level are simple “this OR that” logic or statements such as 2 + 2 = 4.  At the higher end is complex “IF...THEN” thinking with multiple variables and unknowns.  
  • Comfortable Planning Time Horizon:  Over what period of time can a person comfortably create a plan when there are a lot of variables and unknowns?  In the field we might consider certain crafts people in terms of how many hours they can work on their own without direction - this is the lower end of time span.

How would you evaluate yourself and your team?  Contact us for simple scoring sheet.

Is your organizational structure aligned correctly to execute your strategy? 

To effectively develop people? 

 

Books & Videos

 

People Resources




OrgDev (Benchmarks, Trends, Forecasts, and Predictions)
Construction industry benchmarks, trends, forecasts, and predictions for all things talent related including demographics, broader cultural trends, and education programs.
Project Team Zero
What would it mean for your company if every one of your project teams were a zero? Zero-Accidents + Zero-Fade + Delighted Customer = Perfect Project
Accelerated Development - Closing the Gap
The shortage of critical talent in the construction industry will be 3X worse by 2020 and will continue to worsen through 2030. The only way that we will be able to close this gap is if we focus on accelerating the development of people.