Human Capability: A Study of Individual Potential and Its Application

Reporting research that provides an invaluable tool for utilizing individual capability, it makes it possible for talent pool development programs to effectively meet the organization's future human resource requirements.

Elliott 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. 1 See "On Leaving the Tavistock Institute". Human Relations, Vol. #51, No. 3, 1998, pp. 251-257.

Kathryn Cason's long standing interest in the nature of work and individual capability was significantly enriched upon finding Jaques' A General Theory of Bureaucracy. Since 1979 she has been engaged in collaboration with Jaques on research projects that led to the clarification and validation of the relationship of the four mental processes to the hierarchy of work strata in employment organizations. Cason and Jaques continue to test, against this research, their formulations for the affect of future potential upon current actual capability; the role of personal values and interest in actual capability for specific work roles, and the nature of information complexity in childhood, leading up to the first level of capability for employment.

Ms. Cason has worked as advisor to senior management for more than 20 years. Her organizational project work has spanned a broad spectrum of industries from transportation, engineering and finance, to retail and the energy industry, with a focus for the past 13 years on nuclear generation and energy services. In these projects she has tested Elliott Jaques' research findings for general applicability and effectiveness, developed implementation tools for practitioners, and trained other professionals.

Ms. Cason's management career was spent in financial services, marketing, management education and human resources. She was formerly Executive Director of the Human Resource Planning Society, New York, N.Y.; Division Manager, American Management Association, New York. She attended the University of Oklahoma and the University of Missouri, majoring in economics and sociology. Ms. Cason is President of Stratified Systems Inc., New York and Maryland.