freedman re interpreted

8/14/2019 Freedman Re Interpreted

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A COMMENTARY ON FREEDMANS CROSSROAD MODEL

Introduction

In 1997, at the annual meeting of American Psychological Association, Arthur MFreedman presented a structured model of organizational growth of an ambitious

individual, from lowest rungs up to the highest ones, through an article titledPathways and Crossroads to Institutional Leadership. The model gained quite anamount of weight-age amongst the leading organizations across the globe and manyof them have implemented the basic concepts described in it, mostly tailored to theirown structures and systems.

As the model describes, the process of growth passes through four 135-degreecrossroads or shifts and five pathways or levels. These critical career crossroads,in the words of Freedman, consist of discontinuous and unprecedented changes inthe role responsibilities and accountabilities to which managers in transition mustrespond. At each crossroads, people are confronted by a triple challenge: letting goof the anachronistic responsibilities and competencies, preserving those that

continue to be useful, and adding new, discontinuous responsibilities andconsequences. Mangers in transition can cope with these demands by makingadaptive changes in their preferred activities, behavior patterns and style.

Figure 1

Individual Contributor

Supervising Manager

Manager of a single Business

Executive Manager of Several Businesses

Institutional Leader

I

II

III

I


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Figure 2

Commentary on Crossroads

1st Crossroad:

Its a shift from you as an Individual Contributor to your promotion to whatFreedman calls as the Supervisory Manager.The Individual Contributors role, though typically is the entry level position for afresh graduate, this can mean the only position for many! At this level, you aredoing a specialists job and many people want to stay specialist! Thats whyFreedman uses the phrase Ambitious and Upwardly Mobile Person again and again.Only such person would like to make a shift. In many organizations, there is anhonorary position called consultant. Normally, this is a senior person, almostretired, but is required to be retained in case of some advise on some critical issues.Such a person, as per Freedmans Model can be positioned as the IndividualContributor only.

In the normal hierarchical structure, when an individual contributor is supposed to bepromoted to a higher position*, it should not mean just to handle more special jobshimself, but rather get them done mostly through other people. These otherpeople can be a few level down or up or equal to his newly acquired position. Themethod can be either to command or collaborate, depending on the situation andwork content. Moreover, he himself must undergo some behavioral as well asfunctional transformations. For him, the work is now a complex chain of people andprocesses in which he is one of the links. Functionally, he looses visibility of theactivities at the micro-level; so he has to devise indirect ways to control them. Myexperience is that no ready-made supervisory skills are useful. The person himselfhas to develop them based on his own behavioral traits and the company culture.Again, the man is luckier if he gets promoted in his own area where he was workinguntil then, else, there are several cases when the person finds himself elevated in an

unknown area! These shifts can be from R&D to Marketing, from Production toStores or from Servicing to Sales. In this case, the let-go and preservecomponents of Freedmans 135-degree shift are nothing to do with the functionalskills but only with the behavioral skills of the person.

* How to identify such a person amongst his peers? Freedman has given someguidelines, but as per me, it has to be left to the next level bosses and their ownjudgments!

Let Go

Preserve

Add On

Preceding Developmental Phase

SucceedingDevelopmentalPhase


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2nd Crossroad:

This is the shift to what is conventionally called as the middle management. Thepsychological aspects of the person start playing a vital role for all the levelshereafter. Ambiguity tolerance, Judgment, Perseverance and Integrity, are the fewas listed by Freedman. This is the level when many people start reading Stephen

Coveys Seven Habits of Highly Effective People! This is the level when people getinterested into figures(though not develop authority on it), such as profit losscalculations, Performance Index measurements and so on. For the first time, theneed is felt to understand and get aligned with the organizational vision. A sense ofdiplomacy gets developed. At the same time, this is the position where many people suffer from severfrustrations and boredom. The work-life balance may get disturbed. To some extent,attrition is more in this zone. In a way, this position is similar to what psychologistscall as the mid-life crisis for men and women.Thats why, this is the stage, where extensive and periodic training and executivecoaching is necessary.

3rd Crossroad:

This is a transition from the middle to the top management level. The person has towork directly under the chairman or corporate board or the owner. This shift can be(and many times, is) cross-organizational. The position is more or less exposed tothe outside world, public interests, government, stake holders etc. In a way, youhave all chance to become famous!

One of the significant prerequisite competencies at this stage is to develop non-linear, intuitive thinking, as Freedman mentions. Now, this is a tough job! Thequestion is whether such kind of thinking be learnt automatically throughexperience and contemplation or taught deliberately through training? Illogical as itmay seem, the first alternative is more realistic. There are a few methods, tools and

techniques which help to learn to think intuitively. But they may turn out to beineffective if the person has not internalized the lessons of real life.The elements which are counterproductive to such kind of intuitive or free thinkingare pressures from all directions and the anxiety about the consequences of thedecisions taken.

4th Crossroad:

It is the peak of the pyramid. Here is the chairman or CEO of the company. AsFreedman rightly says, the selection process is mostly political. At this level,however, a paradox exists. The position is actually concerned with people, whereasfor many CEOs, it is complained that the company exists only on papers!

And this must be true to some extent. At this level, one can and should be involvedonly to develop, review and calibrate or modify the strategies, policies, vision andgoals. Then there are venture negotiations, branding and image building issues. Acquiring government supports, handling litigations, raising money, managinginvestments and controlling cash flow are as inevitable. Understanding future trends,judging the competition in the market, tapping new opportunities ( not necessarilyfor diversifications) and performing public roles are the other few work domains ofthis position. This way, the operations become more or less abstract at this level.


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Even, the money becomes virtual! So, its no surprise that the people element ofthe organization practically gains a kind of paper existence!

What it means to us

So these are the main crossroads which almost everybody needs to negotiate at

each level shift. Conceptually, Freedman is not proposing something fundamentallynew. But the core agenda of his presentation is to develop the understanding thatthere are discontinuities of functional and behavioral skills at each level, that it isimportant to identify what is to let go , what is to preserve and what is to addon, and that the organizations should develop and implement a practical and welldefined system and process for the growth of their people in the benefit of theorganization.

One of my friends in KPIT Cummins was telling me the other day that they made itcompulsory for the team managers NOT TO DO ANY TECHNICAL JOBS! Every suchactivity was to be delegated to the sub-ordinates and the managers ought to do onlythe managerial part of it! Now, this sounds quite in line with the Freedman Model.

Of course, before one goes even for consideration of adopting the Freedmans Modelto some organization, it is very much essential for that organization to ensure that itsown structure is in place and if not, to establish a new one.

Many a times, the virtues as expected by the Model may appear to be quite idealisticor theoretical. But then, its not all impossible to find a few of them inherently in anindividual, then nurture the ones which are missing but are necessary, throughtraining , mentoring or hands-on interactions, and lastly , to compromise on the oneswhich are highly impossible to expect with the understanding that they may really beimpractical.

One of the benefits reaped by implementing the Crossroad Model is to establish afairly just system of rewards, recognition, promotion and reprimand. One can thenevaluate his subordinates more objectively and on the grounds of previously agreedand mutually shared understanding of role responsibilities and expectations at eachlevel.

A small variant of the Freedman Model

The model can also be applied to the domains and areas other than the industries orbusinesses. But to do that, it may be helpful to introduce a few key parameterswhich will provide the basis on which each Freedman-level can be salientlydistinguished. They are as below:

Visibility Level of the End Process or Work Activity(V)The more one traverses towards the higher levels, the lesser is the visibility ofthe micro-level activities. To operate at higher levels, therefore, one needs toderive some indirect ways to manage the things.

Time Vs Impact Criticality of Decision Making (T)


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Time to take a decision depends upon the span of Impact-Space occupiedby the implementation of that decision. At lower levels, you have more Time-Impact space to take decisions. Athigher levels , it may appear that the decisions are taken very slowly, passingthrough meetings after meetings. But when you understand the Impact-Space occupied by its effect, then it becomes clear how little decision time

was available at the time of taking the decision.

Risk Involved in Decision Making (R)As is clear from above, the risk involved will be in proportion to the impact-space. It is more at the higher levels.

Liability(Responsibility) of other people (L)With more people depending on you, the more is the responsibility carried byyou.

Intuitive Thinking Ability Required (I)The higher the level, lesser is the visibility of the actual situation on the fieldand lesser is the information available for taking a decision. In that case, onehas to take the decision based on his intuition or judgment.

The above parameters can be applied on a scale of 1 to 10 as per their relevance ateach level . Lets call this system of rating asVTRLI system.

Now lets consider 2 cases.

First, a Family System. You may find it interesting to know how we can categorizeour traverse through this system, as below:


Supervising Manager




When earning, Now

Married, No child

Married, and

having a child

Now Children Get

Married . Staying

with you.

Now Children have

Children. You are a

total Famil head

When earning,

but Unmarried


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Now the VTRLJI rating at each level can be as below:

VISIBILITY TIME RISK LIABILITY JUDGMENT INTUTION

LEVEL 5 1 6 9 8 9 9

LEVEL 4 3 6 8 5 8 7

LEVEL 3 5 7 7 3 7 6

LEVEL 2 6 7 5 2 5 4LEVEL 1 7 8 3 1 3 2

This is just a sample rating. You may have your own views.

Second, consider a Transport System.

Now the VTRLJI rating at each level can be as below:


Supervising Manager




When Walking

When driving a 2-

wheeler carrying a

erson

When driving a 4-

wheeler carrying 4

ersons

When driving a

Public Road

Transport carrying

many people

When driving an

Airplane Transportcarrying many

people


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VISIBILITY TIME RISK LIABILITY JUDGMENT INTUTION

LEVEL 5 2 2 9 9 9 8

LEVEL 4 4 4 8 8 7 6

LEVEL 3 6 4 6 4 5 4

LEVEL 2 7 5 4 2 4 3

LEVEL 1 9 9 1 1 1 1

Again, this is just a sample rating and you may have your own fun!

The above two examples and the new system of rating the Freedman levels aredeveloped primarily to understand the crossroad model. They also indicate that theFreedman model can be open to its own variants to make it suitable to your ownorganization.

Written by :

Shirish Kulkarni

Proprietor ,TRANSFORMAN CONSULTING, Pune

(The writer is having a 16+ years of Industrial Experience. He has worked as an

employee for 12 years in a Consumer Electronics Company , in various capacities

from a Design Engineer up to a Project Manager. He had been to the countries

such as Japan, Singapore, Hongkong and China while handling the

responsibilities of Product development and Project Management .

Presently , he is active as an entrepreneur in the field of Embedded Systems

Development and the Corporate Training and Mentoring at various

organizations.)


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