In collecting data to answer this question, I began with observations of the open office area to
‘case the joint’, while off-site I scrutinised ODC’s document describing its consulting model.
These initial observations took place over a series of mornings after my introduction to the crew. I initially sat on one of the couches in this area (couch 2 in Figure 6.1, p163), but then moved around to different consoles to gain different vantage points.
The open office area was an unusually quiet one with staff having little interaction or exchanges in the area. There were occasional whispers between staff sitting at the same console, but any discussions appeared to take place outside the open office space. For example Jean signalled to Sarah by whispering her name and pointing with her head to the door as she walked past Sarah.
Sarah then got up and walked out of the office area. On another occasion, Adrian, sitting at console 1, attracted Sarah’s attention, at console 3, by raising his arms high into the air, while seated, and waving his hands. He then gestured with his fingers for her to go to him. Sarah got up and went to Adrian’s desk where he began the conversation in hushed tones, “Is this the right thing?” They had a brief discussion in whispers, and then Sarah returned to her work console.
“Interesting and strange,” I thought. “Staff do not speak to one another in the open office space;
they whisper or they meet to speak in an area outside of this space.” I wondered if this was an indication of respect for one another as the office area was a quiet working space or if team discussions were secret, or if there was another reason. In time, I concluded the former as I noticed that the office area was treated as a quiet working space for everyone and discussions could be disruptive to co-workers. All staff had discussions (inter-personal and cellphone calls) outside of the open office area, either in a meeting room, the kitchen or the reception area, and this seemed to be an unwritten rule and part of their culture. I also wondered if this was counter to the purpose of an open-plan office – weren’t these types of spaces meant to encourage open communication between staff? “There’s not even a radio to fill in the quiet,” I thought to
myself. I did not realise at that point that it would be quite different on my return to the environment in phase 6 (in 2012).
Laughter could be heard at different times from the kitchen and the reception area. “This is healthy,” I thought. It appeared so quiet and serious in the open office area, but there were spaces where staff could engage on a lighter note.
There seemed to be a lack of orientation or induction into the organisation. When Julie joined ODC, she asked an intern who sat at the same console as her, to whom she should address her questions. The intern responded that Julie could ask her all project-related questions. “Oh,” I thought, “and what about her other questions? Who would be able to assist her with these?”
Staff seemed reluctant to move away from their desks, even to eat their lunch. Most would remain at their consoles to eat, whilst working in between bites. “Okay,” I thought, “this is like so many other organisations that I’ve visited or been part of. We (South Africans) just don’t seem to want to take time to eat and have a break while doing so. What is it with us?”
Although staff did not speak loudly and the office environment appeared a bit constrained, there did appear to be some free movement in the office area. Initially Mark sat at work console 3 with other consultants, but during the course of the study he moved to work console 1 where two interns were seated, for no particular reason other than a change of scenery and company.
I had heard the staff comment that the office area was a ‘fish bowl’ with the managers’/directors’ offices looking into the office area (as illustrated in Figure 6.1, p163). I wondered “Why the metaphor?” and turned my attention to those outside of the ‘fish bowl’ – the managers/directors in their offices. Some staff commented that they felt that they were always in and on view and that eyes from the offices were watching them. “Is this reality or is it staff perception?” I wondered, and came to no real conclusion. Nevertheless, I did turn my attention to what was taking place behind the glass walls.
One of the directors would often work in her office with her door closed. She would occasionally leave her office to go to the bathroom or kitchen, have a few brief exchanges with some staff and then return to her office, closing the door behind her. The other director would keep his door open, except when in a meeting, as would one of the managers. The other manager would occasionally have her door closed, but most often it was open. She would also
occasionally have brief exchanges with the staff in the open office area. It did not appear that the managers were peering into the ‘fish bowl’ – I most often viewed them with their heads behind their computers, or busily making notes on note pads.
Having ‘cased the joint’, I turned my attention to the company documentation which provided insight into the underpinning philosophy or approach of ODC. This approach was evident in the documentation related to their consulting model.
ODC’s consulting model
ODC was started by the current Managing Director (MD) and a business partner in 1996. The focus of ODC at that time was organisational design and development and the founding partners viewed their offering as being at the forefront of redefining organisational design and development, something which is ever-changing. The founding partners of ODC saw a market for a framework for organisational design and development and they developed a model for consulting that is based on work complexity. ODC refined work complexity theories to their model to be more specific to a developing country context. It also adapted its model to suit the mining sector by including the sub-procedural levels (see Table 6.5, p172). This model of work complexity evolved and includes the following framework:
• Stratified Systems Theory which theorises the relationship between work complexity and human cognitive capability, developed by Elliot Jaques (of the USA), and
• The work of Dr. Gillian Stamp (of the United Kingdom) who developed the concept of Levels of Work Theory (LoW) and the Career Path Appreciation Test (CPA) to measure cognitive capability in terms of work (le Roux, 2008:8).
ODC’s model considers human cognitive complexity and purports that this needs to be mapped to work complexity. “Elliot Jacques’ theory, Stratified Systems Theory, is groundbreaking in that it classifies work complexity and recognises that from a cognitive ability perspective, individuals have natural affinity for different types of work” (ODC Work Complexity, 2006). In describing human cognitive complexity, the work of Jean Piaget and other cognitive psychologists is taken into account. The model commences with an understanding that experiences influence human cognitive development and defines related concepts as follows:
Cognition: refers to how we acquire information about the world and turn it into personal knowledge that we can store and retrieve to direct our behaviour
Cognitive development: is therefore the unfolding and refinement of these cognitive processes
Cognitive complexity ability: is an individual’s ability to deal with the complexities of modern life and work and has become a fundamental factor in dictating a person’s potential competence in a job.
ODC’s understanding of cognitive complexity ability relates to the context of a learning organisation as, based on the above definitions, an individual’s ability to learn links to the level of work he/she is able to perform. In order to be a learning organisation, individuals within the organisation need to be learning (Senge, 1990). According to ODC’s model, certain levels of work (work complexity themes) need more learning than others and as such the practises/disciplines of a learning organisation may only be viewed at certain levels in an organisation, that is levels of work that require “knowledge work” to be done to a lesser or greater degree, as can be seen in Table 6.5.
Table 6.5. Knowledge work required for Work Complexity themes
WORK COMPLEXITY
• Limited discretion required for alternative courses of action
• Apply skills and knowledge to procedures
4. SYSTEMS MAINTENANCE
Supervisor • Knowledge production
• Produce information from data
• Need to understand theory and/or systems behind work required
• Have internal organisational focus but pull specific knowledge relating to discipline from external sources
• Question the functional system in order to identify if there is a better way of achieving the same results
• Question old systems to implement new systems
6. OPERATIONS
• Integrate internal knowledge of the organisation or discipline with external knowledge from peers, or from the higher themes to form solutions applicable to the organisation