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A Total System for Effective Managerial Organization and Managerial Leadership for the 21 st Century
REVISED SECOND EDITION. BY ELLIOTT JAQUES. ARLINGTON, VA: CASON HALL & CO, 1996. $69.95
THOUGHT TO PROMOTE corporate inertia and impede the free flow of ideas crucial to success in the information age, hierarchies have been tumbling for years. But this view of hierarchies is wrong, claims Elliott Jaques, consultant, author of 18 books and a visiting research professor in management science at George Washington University. During the past year, he has made the Canadian news for his role as an adviser to Ontario Hydro.
Now in its second edition, Jaques' handbook to better hierarchy, Requisite Organization, professes that, although red tape and rigidity are symptoms of dysfunction, if properly structured, bureaucratic hierarchy can liberate human creativity. He further states that once you start employing other people, some form of bureaucratic hierarchy, or what Jaques refers to as a managerial accountability hierarchy (MAH), is not only necessary, but natural.
To put it simply - perhaps too simply for Professor Jaques, who has a penchant for precise definitions an MAH is any vertically structured organization, or system...