WHO WE ARE

We are a part of a professional community distributed through several countries in the world, dedicated to the practice of organization and human resources on scientific bases. We are convinced that in the course of the following decades the conceptual and technical bases that we use, confined today to a relatively limited group, will increase considerably in their degree of diffusion and acceptance for the benefit of both organizations and of the community at large. This site is one part of the efforts aimed at achieving this.

Today the technology exists for organizing human work in a manner that leads both to organizational effectiveness and personal fulfillment at work. In the course of the latest decades, several organizations in the world offer testimony of the substantial benefits generated by the best practices in this field.

A BASIC PRINCIPLE IN OUR APPROACH:

Organizations have the mission of creating value for the community in which they act. People working in them have their own aspirations of personal achievement and of equitable compensation for their efforts. Good organizational systems sustain the situation in which the needs of the organization and the people converge and reinforce each other. They support creation of value and quality of life at work in the same act. They make it possible to earn one's living and enjoy life at the same time.

There is strong evidence in support that normal adults feel an imperious need to apply fully whatever capacity they have to generating value for their communities, during a time no shorter than 40 hours per week.

Daily observation, however, gives us all ample and continuous evidence that seems to disprove this assumption. We see people who feel their occupations as an unavoidable burden that must be endured just to make a living. We contemplate the longing for leisure, the anticipation of weekends and holidays, and we know well the fantasies of a life free from toil. We know of people who make use of social subsidies in order to restrain their own efforts. Making a living and enjoying life seem to be opposed terms.

These observations of reality, however, are the effect of deficient organization of human work, rather than an essential expression of human nature. For more than half a century now, this concept stands clear for a line of thinking on human behavior in organizations. Dr. Elliott Jaques, the author of Requisite Organization Theory, arrives to this powerful conclusion after many decades of research and consulting:

So, rather than wondering whether the average human being is inherently indolent or laborious, egotistical or altruistic, ethical or dishonest, the attention should be focused on the circumstances of work organization that drive one or the other type of response.

The basic assumption above is not new, nor does it originate in RO theory. The unique contribution of this scientific development, however, is to have set the foundations for an effective technology to actually effect this change. We know today what to do in order to create work organizations in which quality of life and productivity are two facets of the same phenomenon.

These are our guiding principles:

• The application of whatever capability and energy individuals possess to the creation of value for their environment is a compelling need for the great majority of ordinary people.




• Organizational systems (structure, human relations systems, managerial processes) have a determining effect on the behavior of people in organizations. They have the potentiality of activating this need and thus promote full endeavor, constructive work and personal integration within a pervasive atmosphere of trust, just like they have the power to induce parochialism and selfishness, greed, lack of personal integrity and mutual distrust.




• The science and the technology exist today to design organizational systems that induce mutual trust, personal integrity and the creation of value.




• The choice of organizational systems in any organization carries a strong ethical implication. The responsibility for these choices involve executive officers in charge and those who advise them on such matters.

Therefore, the essence of our mission is:

See a synopsis of Requisite Organization and its author
How can Requisite Organization theory improve profits in my business?
Consulting services provided by our firm
See RESOURCES page for bibliography.