Requisite Organization

Built upon a rigorous theoretical base, Stratified Systems Theory, Requisite Organization relates all aspects of leadership, work and human resources in a unified total system.

Jaques is Visiting Research Professor in Management Science at George Washington University. He has been engaged in practical field work over the past 50 years in the development and real life testing of a comprehensive theory-based system of organizational structure and managerial processes, including fundamental developments in our understanding of the meaning of work. This system calls for sweeping changes in approach to organizational development work and in the evaluation and development of individuals engaged in work.

This development work has been carried out in projects in industry and commerce, in government, in social, educational and health services, in the Church of England and the U.S. Army. In this latter connection Elliott Jaques was awarded the Joint Staff Certificate of Appreciation by General Colin Powell on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces for "outstanding contributions in the field of military leadership theory and instruction to all of the service departments of the United States."

Throughout his career, Jaques has continuously combined work with organizations and with individuals against the background of a B.A. Honors Science degree from the University of Toronto, an M.D. from Johns Hopkins Medical School, a Ph.D. in Social Relations from Harvard, and qualification as a psychoanalyst at the British Psychoanalytical Society. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry. Author of 18 books, including Requisite Organization, 1996, Human Capability, 1994 (with K. Cason), and Executive Leadership, 1991 (with S. Clement).

Jaques served as a Major in the Canadian Army during WWII as liaison to the British Army War Officer Selection Board (WOSB). He remained in England after the war. He was a founding member of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations but quickly found that the group dynamics approach did not accurately reflect the reality of managerial accountabilities.1 In 1964, he was invited, as Head of School, to develop the School of Social Sciences at Brunel University in London, and its Research Institute of Organizational Studies.

During his career, Jaques has been responsible for a series of major discoveries in the social sciences, contributing in a significant way to our understanding of human nature and social institutions. The most well known is his formulation of the mid-life crisis, but others with very significant implications include: -

a method for objectively measuring the complexity of work roles, that in turn made possible the discovery of the unexpected existence of universal norms of fair pay for work, which upturns our current assumptions about human greed in relation to pay; -

an objective understanding of the nature of human potential capability, and of its maturation throughout life from infancy through old age, that will change the basis of developmental psychology, and our approach to education; -

the detailed specifications of a range of different organizational systems for industry and commerce, public service, churches, schools and universities, hospitals, and the military, that are requisite in the sense that they provide both for efficient work and for socially healthy settings for human relationships and individual growth.

These developments and many others will make a substantial contribution to the betterment of society and its values. (See "On Leaving the Tavistock Institute". Human Relations, Vol. #51, No. 3, 1998, pp. 251-257).