Concepts of Retribution and Revenge

Concepts of Retribution and Revenge Question Retribution and revenge are, and must be, strictly distinguished one from the other. Discuss Introduction It is not necessarily ideal to begin a discussion paper with a direct challenge to the veracity of the statement under review, but that is exactly what is demanded here. The first step in this analysis is easy to take: Retribution: noun recompense, usually for evil; vengeance.[1] Revenge: noun 1. (act of) retaliation 2. desire for this. verb ((-ging) 1. Avenge 2. revenge oneself or in passive; often + on, upon) inflict retaliation.[2] The statement for discussion concretes itself in absolute terms, but that, it is submitted, is no more than a faà §ade. It is confidently submitted that retribution and revenge are far from â€Å"strictly distinguished one from the other† in 21st century Britain. The average man or woman on the street on whose behalf the law is maintained and enforced would struggle to put clear blue sky between the two concepts, even in the abstract.[3] Once a factual scenario is added to the mix for context, once flesh and blood and sentiment are brought into the equation, the edges of these respective notions blur yet further. Indeed, the words retribution and revenge are so closely associated in the mind of the ordinary man that they are practically interchangeable. In the glossary to Oxford University Press’s Criminology textbook[4], retribution is defined as: the act of taking revenge upon a criminal perpetrator. Given the mutuality of this definition it would seem difficult to divide the two concepts quite as sharply as the statement under review suggests. From a cynical perspective, it could be argued that retribution is merely revenge with slightly better P.R. In the auspicious words of Sir Francis Bacon in Of Revenge[5] the issues seem to be distinguished by the notion that, while revenge is essentially a private affair, retribution has more public, and perhaps publicly acceptable, application and connotations. Whereas retribution may be seen to exercise a positive social function, revenge is forbidden fruit a sin perhaps if not, a luxury dressed in vice. ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice which, the more mans nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office†¦ Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a princes part to pardon. And Salomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh. This is more generous, for the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent. But base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.’[6] Contextual Analysis It is submitted therefore, that retribution and revenge are in fact closely related concepts. Together they probably comprise the most basic, most deeply engrained and most pervasive elements of human social justice reactions and drivers. That said however, at least one mode of distinction should be clear in the mind. While academic comment on revenge and retribution has in the past tended to revolve around the issue of criminal justice,[7] it is a trite observation that retribution is of prime significance in steering the justification and rationale of other legal matters. For example, beyond the criminal arena, discrimination, medical negligence and malpractice, and a veritable constellation of other species of civil litigation can hinge around and be fostered by a base desire for retribution and retributive justice.[8] Retributive motivation can also burn at the heart of intractable personal, family or business disputes. Retribution is a fascinating psychological and social phenomenon. It can be analysed from a variety of legal, philosophical and other social science perspectives. Discussion of the topic should address the full range of psychological, societal and sociological functions that punishment serves, embracing the cognitive, behavioural and emotional dynamics of retribution in context.[9] Almost all of the world’s cultures operate an organised system of social regulation and conflict resolution. Among them, legal systems predominate as the most popular and widespread. Law is retribution and conflict resolution by public administration under the unchallengeable authority of the state. Retributive justice is that which is state sponsored.[10] It is possible to distinguish the concept from other forms of retribution and conflict resolution on several grounds. First, law can be said to be retribution or conflict resolution that is managed by a centralised authority or federal structure. Under this model, retribution for wrongdoing and conflict resolution should not be in jeopardy of escalation into a deleterious cycle of mutual and personal revenge. There is of course always the danger of complimentary retribution: if I penalise you for hitting me, youll penalise me for punishing you theoretically an unending cycle of reciprocal and ultimately destructive violence. A legal system, under the administration of a central body, removes responsibility for retribution from the hands of individuals and puts it at the discretion of the state. Given that it is vast, impersonal and all-powerful, it is unlikely that those convicted and punished would attempt to revenge themselves in any direct or specific fashion against the state. The seductive revenge element of the law is manifest in notorious crimes including for example the killing of Polly Klaas in California and the popular revulsion and controversy inspired as a consequence.[11] That case can be compared with the United Kingdom public reaction to the sentencing of the Jamie Bulger killers, themselves children.[12] One essential point of observation is that the respective families of the victims, no matter what punishment they aspired to visit on the killers, are not the ones who decide on the penalty and they are not the ones who administer the punishment. Because most law is written and long established it can be argued that it assumes an independent and distinguished persona beyond the emanation of the state that is charged with its administration. This matrix conspires to derive a collective sociological fiction that it is the inalienable Law that governs those who implement the law, and that it is somehow the law that exacts retribution, not individual human beings or the servants of the state. This neat trick ensures that the law stands above and apart from the real world as something conceptually flawless in essence if not reality, something truly independent of human frailty, vicissitudes, fallibility and instability.[13] There is a simple and thus cogent argument that Law is, at its beating heart, no more than a mechanism for revenge. This should not come as a surprise. It is submitted that the fundamental response, the base socio-cultural mechanism for addressing unacceptable activity and behaviour, is to exact revenge. Incompatible activities that fell outwith the sphere of revenge were not initially embraced within the world’s legal systems. Generally speaking it was only later hundreds of years later in many cases that retribution-neutral disputes were encompassed within legal regimes.[14] The earliest-dated code of laws available for scrutiny is the Code of Hammurabi,[15] which sees it origins around 1780 BC. Significantly, the Babylonian King’s rules were obsessed with mechanisms for retribution. This early legal system assumes the form of a lex talionis the law of retaliation providing for exact retribution. The biblical mantra is: â€Å"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an arm for an arm, a life for a life.†[16] Mankind’s very earliest systems of law were almost exclusively species of lex talionis. As can be seen from the aforementioned quote, in the tone of Hebrew Scripture the lex talionis is a law of equal and direct retribution. Revenge, in this context is arguably surplus to requirements. King Hammurabis legal code and the nascent Syro-Roman and Mahommedan systems that followed,[17] almost wholly founded on the explicit principle of equal and direct retribution. In so doing it reveals the origins of law and justice per se in the gore of retributive violence. Concluding Comments In light of the fact that something similar to the lex talionis is typically the foundation stone of every legal system, it is argued that we can deduce that the basic functions of law are those of revenge and retribution†¦ and in no particular order. However, unlike systems of direct retribution (which are in one sense the fast food of societal sin), legal systems are implemented and enforced by the state and its human embodiment in dislocated fashion. The individuals responsible are normally insulated from the threat of reciprocal revenge in return. While revenge and retribution may jeopardise less well regulated societies as protagonists attempt to inflict reciprocal revenge on one another, retribution as it is embodied in established legal orders and controlled by the state entity in theory strives to prevent a deleterious circle of mutual revenge from undermining the fabrics and glues of society. In a perfect world the concepts of revenge and retribution would indeed be distinguished uniquely and precisely, one from the other. Alas, this is far from a perfect world and the legal matrix in which these terms sit is an organic hotch-potch of socio-political compromise. Thus, both in respect of their common and legal meanings, it is likely these concepts will be employed interchangeably by journalists, judges and the world at large. In closing, it is pertinent to note that, with a few notable exceptions, most countries, including the U.K., have abolished the death sentence. International war crime tribunals now award only life sentences for the most appalling crimes against humanity. It is submitted that this global shift in emphasis away from revenge-based sanctions has been driven by the emerging philosophy among criminologists that punishment in the form of revenge and retribution sits incongruously in a modern civilised society.[18] The Bible has a great deal to say on the subject of revenge and retribution. Much of the sentiment expressed therein has coloured the legal systems of the Christian and Western worlds for hundreds of years, in the interpretation and application. It is a matter of regret and stifled consternation that even in that highest of resources contradiction, ambiguity and confusion is rife. Two quotes end this commentary, leaving objectivity in the eye, and at the disposal, of the reader. If the person strikes another and kills him, he must be put to death. Whoever strikes an animal and kills it is to make restitution, life for life. If anyone injures and disfigures a fellow countryman it must be done to him as he has done. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Book of Leviticus, Chapter 24:17-20 You have heard that it was said, `Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Matthew, Chapter 5:38-41 END WORD COUNT 2122 (exclusive of footnotes) This is the sole intellectual and creative work of the author. Bibliography English Legal System, Elliot, C. and Quinn, F., 3rd edition, Longman (2000) Criminology, Hale et al., Oxford University Press, (2005). Smith and Keenan’s English Law, Keenan, D., 13th edition, Pitman Publishing, (2001) Sir Francis Bacon: The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, Kiernan M, (editor), Oxford University Press, (2000). Clint Eastwood and Equity: The virtues of revenge and the Shortcomings of Law in Popular Culture, Miller, W. I., Law in the Domains of Culture, University of Michigan Press, (1998). Perceptions of Neighborhood Safety and Support for the Reintroduction of Capital Punishment, Keil T.J., et al, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 43, No. 4, 514-534 (1999) The Practice of Punishment: Towards a Theory of Restorative Justice, Cragg W, Routledge, New York (1992). Restorative Justice and Civil Society, Braithwaite J, and Strang H, (editors), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (2001). You can kill a burglar if you have to, but not if you want to, Gibb F, The Times, February 2 2005. Babylonian Law The Code of Hammurabi, Johns CHW, Encyclopaedia Britannica, (11th ed). Restorative Justice: An Overview. Home Office, United Kingdom. Available at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/occ-resjus.pdf Restorative Justice: When Justice and Healing Go Together, Zehr H, http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/archive/two/6_34/p20_restorative.html Empowerment and Retribution in Criminal and Restorative Justice, Barton C, Victim Offender Mediation Program. (1999): http://www.voma.org/docs/barton_empre.pdf 1 Footnotes [1] The Oxford Paperback Dictionary and Thesaurus, Oxford University Press (1997) [2] Ibid. [3] See, inter alia, Perceptions of Neighborhood Safety and Support for the Reintroduction of Capital Punishment, Keil T.J., et al, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 43, No. 4, 514-534 (1999) at pp.522. [4] Criminology, Hale et al., Oxford University Press, (2005). [5] See, Sir Francis Bacon: The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, Kiernan M, (editor), Oxford University Press, (2000). [6] Ibid, and see http://www.ardue.org.uk/library/book3/revenge.htm. [7] For broad-based comment see Smith and Keenan’s English Law, Keenan, D., 13th edition, Pitman Publishing, (2001), chapter 25. [8] The Practice of Punishment: Towards a Theory of Restorative Justice, Cragg W, Routledge, New York (1992). [9] Clint Eastwood and Equity: The virtues of revenge and the Shortcomings of Law inPopular Culture, Miller, W. I., Law in the Domains of Culture, University of Michigan Press, (1998). [10] See for insightful comment: Restorative Justice and Civil Society, Braithwaite J, and Strang H, (editors), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (2001). [11] See for comment: http://pollyklaas.ga0.org/law/law_enforcement.html [12] Justice? This is insanity : http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/jamie.htm. [13] For supporting analysis and a uniquely positive perspective see Empowerment and Retribution in Criminal and Restorative Justice, Barton C, Victim Offender Mediation Program. (1999): http://www.voma.org/docs/barton_empre.pdf [14] You can kill a burglar if you have to, but not if you want to, Gibb F, The Times, February 2 2005. [15] Ancient History Sourcebook: Code of Hammurabi, c. 1780 BCE: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html [16] Babylonian Law The Code of Hammurabi, Johns CHW, Encyclopaedia Britannica, (11th ed). [17] See for background: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM. [18] Tamilnation.org, 10 December 1999: http://www.tamilnation.org/intframe/india/rajiv/99unfairtrial.htm.

Designing High-Performance Jobs

Improving the performance of key people is often as simple—and as profound—as changing the resources they control and the results for which they are accountable. by Robert Simons You have a compelling product, an exciting vision, and a clear strategy for your new business. You’ve hired good people and forged relationships with critical suppliers and distributors. You’ve launched a marketing campaign targeting high-value customers. All that remains is to build an organization that can deliver on the promise. But implementation goes badly. Managers in the regional offices don’t show enough entrepreneurial spirit. They are too complacent and far too slow in responding to customers. Moreover, it’s proving very difficult to coordinate activities across units to serve large, multisite customers. Decision making is fragmented, and time to market is much longer than expected. Excessive costs are eating away at profit margins. You begin to wonder: â€Å"Have I put the wrong people in critical jobs? † But the problems are more widespread than that—in fact, they’re systemic across the organization. This tale of a great strategy derailed by poor execution is all too common. Of course, there are many possible reasons for such a failure and many people who might be to blame. But if this story reminds you of your own experience, have you considered the possibility that your organization is designed to fail? Specifically, are key jobs structured to achieve the business’s performance potential? If not, unhappy consequences are all but inevitable. In this article, I present an action-oriented framework that will show you how to design jobs for high performance. My basic point is straightforward: For your business to achieve its potential, each employee’s supply of organizational resources should equal his or her demand for them, and the same supply-and-demand balance must apply to every function, every business unit, and the entire company. Sounds simple, and it is. But only if you understand what determines this balance and how you can influence it. The Four Spans of Job Design To understand what determines whether a job is designed for high performance, you must put yourself in the shoes of your organization’s managers. To carry out his or her job, each employee has to know the answer to four basic questions: †¢ â€Å"What resources do I control to accomplish my tasks? † †¢ â€Å"What measures will be used to evaluate my performance? † †¢ â€Å"Who do I need to interact with and influence to achieve my goals? † †¢ â€Å"How much support can I expect when I reach out to others for help? † The questions correspond to what I call the four basic spans of a job: control, accountability, influence, and support. Each span can be adjusted so that it is narrow or wide or somewhere in between. I think of the adjustments as being made on sliders, like those found on music amplifiers. If you get the settings right, you can design a job in which a talented individual can successfully execute your company’s strategy. But if you get the settings wrong, it will be difficult for any employee to be effective. I’ll look at each span in detail and discuss how managers can adjust the settings. (The exhibit â€Å"The Four Spans† provides a summary. ) The Span of Control. The first span defines the range of resources—not only people but also assets and infrastructure—for which a manager is given decision rights. These are also the resources whose performance the manager is held accountable for. Executives must adjust the span of control for each key position and unit on the basis of how the company delivers value to customers. Consider Wal-Mart, which has configured its entire organization to deliver low prices. Wal-Mart’s strategy depends on standardization of store operations coupled with economies of scale in merchandising, marketing, and distribution. To ensure standardization, Wal-Mart sets the span of control for store managers at the â€Å"narrow† end of the scale. Although they nominally control their stores, Wal-Mart site managers have limited decision rights regarding hours of operation, merchandising displays, and pricing. By contrast, the span of control for managers at corporate headquarters who oversee merchandising and other core operations is set at â€Å"wide. † They are responsible for implementing best practices and consolidating operations to capture economies of scale. In addition to controlling purchasing, merchandising, and distribution, these managers even control the lighting and temperature at Wal-Mart’s 3,500 stores by remote computer. (The settings for the two jobs are compared in the exhibit â€Å"Spans of Control at Wal-Mart. †) Spans of Control at Wal-Mart (Located at the end of this rticle) Of course, the spans of control will be set very differently in companies that follow different strategies. Consider Nestle, a food company that reformulates its products in response to regional tastes for spices and sweets. In this â€Å"local value creation† configuration, the span of control for regional business managers is set very wide so that they have all the resources they need to customize products and respond to customers. Regional managers take responsibility for sales, product development, distribution, and manufacturing. As a consequence, the spans of control for managers back at the head office are relatively narrow, covering only logistics, the supply chain, global contracts, and accounting and finance. The Span of Accountability. The second span refers to the range of trade-offs affecting the measures used to evaluate a manager’s achievements. For example, a person who is accountable for head count or specific expenses in an operating budget can make few trade-offs in trying to improve the measured dimensions of performance and so has a narrow span of accountability. By contrast, a manager responsible for market share or business profit can make many trade-offs and thus has a relatively wide span of accountability. Your setting for this span is determined by the kind of behavior you want to see. To ensure compliance with detailed directives, hold managers to narrow measures. To encourage creative thinking, make them responsible for broad metrics such as market share, customer satisfaction, and return on capital employed, which allow them greater freedom. The span of control and the span of accountability are not independent. They must be considered together. The first defines the resources available to a manager; the second defines the goals the manager is expected to achieve. You might conclude, therefore, that the two spans should be equally wide or narrow. As the adage goes, authority should match responsibility. But in high-performing organizations, many people are held to broad performance measures such as brand profit and customer satisfaction, even though they do not control all the resources—manufacturing and service, for example—needed to achieve the desired results. There is a good reason for this discrepancy. By explicitly setting the span of accountability wider than the span of control, executives can force their managerial subordinates to become entrepreneurs. In fact, entrepreneurship has been defined (by Howard H. Stevenson and J. Carlos Jarillo) as â€Å"the process by which individuals—either on their own or inside organizations—pursue opportunities without regard to the resources they currently control. † What happens when employees are faced with this entrepreneurial gap? They must use their energy and creativity to figure out how to succeed without direct control of the resources they need. See the exhibit â€Å"Creating the Entrepreneurial Gap. †) Thus, managers can adjust these two spans to stimulate creativity and entrepreneurial behavior. Creating the Entrepreneurial Gap (Located at the end of this article) Of course, spans of accountability vary by level in most organizations—in general, they are wider at the top of a company and narrower at the bottom. The CEO of McDonald’s has a wide span of accountability that encompasses stock price, earnings per share, and competitive market position. A McDonald’s store manager has a much narrower span. She must focus on compliance with standard operating procedures, and she is monitored through detailed input and process measures. The Span of Influence. The third span corresponds to the width of the net that an individual needs to cast in collecting data, probing for new information, and attempting to influence the work of others. An employee with a narrow span of influence does not need to pay much attention to people outside his small area to do his job effectively. An individual with a wide span must interact extensively with, and influence, people in other units. As is the case with the other spans, senior managers can adjust the span of influence to promote desired behaviors. They can widen the span when they want to stimulate people to think outside the box to develop new ways of serving customers, increasing internal efficiencies, or adapting to changes in external markets. In many companies, widening the span of influence counteracts the rigidity of organizational structures based on boxes and silos. For example, although global companies like Procter & Gamble need to be responsive to local customers’ needs, they must also create pressure for people in different operations to look beyond their silos to consolidate operations and share best practices to lower costs. Similarly, firms such as big-box retailers that centralize merchandising and distribution to deliver low prices must ensure that they continue to monitor changing competitive dynamics. Operations managers who are insulated from the marketplace must be forced to interact with people in units that are closest to customers. In all of these cases, it’s up to senior managers to ensure that individuals work across organizational boundaries to test new ideas, share information, and learn. Executives can widen a manager’s span of influence by redesigning her job—placing her on a cross-functional team, for example, or giving her an assignment that requires her to report to two bosses. They can also adjust a job’s span of influence through the level of goals they set. Although the nature of a manager’s goals drives her span of accountability (by determining the trade-offs she can make), the level, or difficulty, drives her sphere of influence. Someone given a stretch goal will often be forced to seek out and interact with more people than someone whose goal is set at a much lower level. Finally, executives can use accounting and control systems to adjust the span of influence. For example, the span will be wider for managers who are forced to bear the burden of indirect cost allocations generated by other units, because they will attempt to influence the decisions of the units responsible for the costs. The more complex and interdependent the job, the more important a wide span of influence becomes. In fact, a wide influence span is often an indication of both the power and effectiveness of an executive. In describing eBay’s Meg Whitman, for example, A. G. Lafley, the CEO of Procter & Gamble, said, â€Å"The measure of a powerful person is that their circle of influence is greater than their circle of control. † The Span of Support. This final span refers to the amount of help an individual can expect from people in other organizational units. Again, the slider can be set anywhere from narrow to wide depending on how much commitment from others the person needs in order to implement strategy. Jobs in some organizations—particularly positions such as commission-based sales in efficient and liquid markets—do not need wide spans of support. In fact, such organizations generally operate more efficiently with narrow spans, since each job is independent and individual contributions can be calculated easily at day’s end. Traders in financial institutions, for example, need little support from their fellow traders, and their colleagues can and should stay focused on their own work (and should be compensated solely for their success in generating profit). But wide spans of support become critically important when customer loyalty is vital to strategy implementation (for example, at exclusive hotel chains) or when the organizational design is highly complex because of sophisticated technologies and a complex value chain (in aerospace or computers, for instance). In these cases, individuals throughout the company must move beyond their job descriptions to respond to requests for help from others who are attempting to satisfy customers or navigate organizational processes. Managers cannot adjust a job’s span of support in isolation. That’s because the span is largely determined by people’s sense of shared responsibilities, which in turn stems from a company’s culture and values. In many cases, therefore, all or most of a company’s jobs will have a wide span of support, or none will. But even within a given company culture, there are often circumstances in which managers need to widen the span of support separately for key business units (for example, to support a new division created to bundle and cross sell products from other units) or for key positions (for example, to facilitate the work of cross-functional task forces). There are various policies that managers can employ to widen spans of support. For example, a focus on a customer based mission typically creates a sense of shared purpose. In addition, broad-based stock ownership plans and team- and group-centered incentive programs often foster a sense of equity and belonging and encourage people to help others achieve shared goals. Firms that are characterized by wide spans of support also frown on letting top executives flaunt the trappings of privilege and generally follow a policy of promoting people internally to senior positions. The slider settings for the four spans in any job or business unit are a function of the business’s strategy and the role of that job or unit in implementing it. When you are adjusting job or unit design, the first step is to set the span of control to reflect the resources allocated to each position and unit that plays an important role in delivering customer value. This setting, like the others, is determined by how the business creates value for customers and differentiates its products and services from competitors’. Next, you can dial in different levels of entrepreneurial behavior and creative tension for specific jobs and units by widening or narrowing spans of accountability and influence. Finally, you must adjust the span of support to ensure that the job or unit will get the informal help it needs. The exhibit â€Å"Four Spans at a Software Company† displays the settings of the spans for a marketing and sales manager at a well-known company that develops and sells complex software for large corporate clients. The span of control for this job is quite narrow. As the manager stated, â€Å"To do my day-to-day job, I depend on sales, sales consulting, competency groups, alliances, technical support, corporate marketing, field marketing, and integrated marketing communications. None of these functions reports to me, and most do not even report to my group. † The span of accountability, by contrast, is wide. The manager is accountable, along with others throughout the business, for revenue growth, profit, and customer satisfaction—measures that require responsiveness and a willingness to make many trade-offs. Four Spans at a Software Company (Located at the end of this article) Note that the span of influence is set somewhat wider than the span of control. To get things done, the manager has to cross boundaries and convince people in other units (whom he cannot command) to help him. So that the manager receives the help he needs, the CEO works hard to ensure that the job’s span of support is wide. An ethos of mutual responsibilities has been created through shared goals, strong group identification, trust, and an equity component in compensation. As the manager noted, â€Å"Coordination happens because we all have customer satisfaction as our first priority. We are in constant communication, and we all are given consistent customer-satisfaction objectives. † Achieving Equilibrium At this point, you’re probably wondering how to determine whether specific jobs or business units in your organization are properly designed. Jobs vary within any business, and firms operate in different markets with unique strategies. How exactly should the spans be set in these many circumstances? After the spans have been adjusted to implement your strategy, there’s an easy way to find out whether a specific job is designed for high performance. It’s a test that can (and should) be applied to every key job, function, and unit in your business. I’ll get to the details shortly, but first, it’s important to recognize the underlying nature of the four spans. Two of the spans measure the supply of organizational resources the company provides to individuals. The span of control relates to the level of direct ontrol a person has over people, assets, and information. The span of support is its â€Å"softer† counterpart, reflecting the supply of resources in the form of help from people in the organization. The other two spans—the span of accountability (hard) and the span of influence (soft)—determine the individual’s demand for organizational resources. The level of an employee’s accountability, as defined by the compan y, directly affects the level of pressure on him to make trade-offs; that pressure in turn drives his need for organizational resources. His level of influence, as determined by the structure of his job and the broader system in which his job is embedded, also reflects the extent to which he needs resources. As I pointed out earlier, when an employee joins a multidisciplinary initiative, or works for two bosses, or gets a stretch goal, he begins reaching out across units more frequently. For any organization to operate at maximum efficiency and effectiveness, the supply of resources for each job and each unit must equal the demand. In other words, span of control plus span of support must equal span of accountability plus span of influence. You can determine whether any job in your organization is poised for sustained high performance—or is designed to fail—by applying this simple test: Using â€Å"Four Spans at a Software Company† as an example, draw two lines, one connecting span of control and span of support (the supply of resources) and the other connecting span of accountability and span of influence (the demand for resources). If these two lines intersect, forming an X, as they do in the exhibit, then demand equals supply (at least roughly) and the job is properly designed for sustained performance. If the lines do not cross, then the spans are misaligned—with predictable consequences. If resources (span of control plus span of support) are insufficient for the task at hand, strategy implementation will fail; if resources are excessive, underutilization of assets and poor economic performance can be predicted. Depending on the desired unit of analysis, this test can be applied to an individual job, a function, a business unit, and even an entire company. When Spans Are Misaligned Consider the case of a struggling high-tech company that makes medical devices. One division was rapidly losing revenue and market share to new competitors because of insufficient sales-force coverage and a lack of new-product development. In another division, created to bundle and cross sell products, managers were unable to get the collaboration they needed to provide a unified solution for a large potential customer. In a third, local managers were making decisions that did not support or build on the company’s overall direction and strategy. These situations arose because senior managers had failed to align the four spans for key jobs and for the divisions overall. In particular, the problems this company encountered reflect three common situations that can limit performance potential. The Crisis of Resources. In some cases, the supply of resources is simply inadequate for the job at hand, leading to a failure of strategy implementation. In the medical devices company, the sales staff had neither enough people to cover the competition (a narrow span of control) nor support from R&D to bring new products to market rapidly (a narrow span of support). A crisis of resources is most likely to occur when executives spend too much time thinking about control, influence, and accountability and not enough time thinking about support. They may, for instance, set the span of accountability wider than the span of control to encourage entrepreneurial behavior. And they may set the span of influence wider than the span of control to stimulate people to interact and work across units. But if the span of support is not widened to compensate for the relatively narrow span of control, people in other units will be unwilling to help when asked. Consider the local subsidiary of a regional investment bank. The managers had few direct resources (a narrow span of control) and relied on specialists from corporate headquarters to fly in to manage deals. Yet their span of accountability was relatively wide, with performance measures focusing on successful deals and revenue generation. Evaluations of the local managers failed to recognize or reward people’s commitment to help others in the organization. As a result, the span of support was too low to support the strategy of the business, which eventually failed. The Crisis of Control. Sometimes the supply of resources exceeds demand, leading to suboptimal economic performance. In highly decentralized organizations where separate business units are created to be close to customers, a crisis of control can occur when the supply of resources (the span of control plus the span of support) exceeds corporate management’s ability to effectively monitor trade-offs (the span of accountability) and to ensure coordination of knowledge sharing with other units (the span of influence). The result is uncoordinated activities across units, missed opportunities, and wasted resources. Consider a large telecommunications company in which regions were organized as independent business units. Because of rapid growth, division managers were able to create fiefdoms in which resources were plentiful. And because of the company’s success, commitment to the business mission was strong. But before long, the lack of effective performance monitoring by corporate superiors caught up with the business. The strategies of the divisions often worked at cross-purposes; there was waste and redundancy. Competitors that were more focused began overtaking the units. The Crisis of Red Tape. This can occur in any organization where powerful staff groups, overseeing key internal processes such as strategic planning and resource allocation, design performance management systems that are too complex for the organization. In such circumstances, spans of accountability and influence are very high, but resources are insufficient and misdirected. Endless time spent in staff meetings wastes resources, slows decision making, and makes the organization unable to respond rapidly to changing customer needs and competitive actions. The demand for resources exceeds supply, and strategy execution fails as more nimble competitors move in. Adjusting the Spans over Time Of course, organizations and job designs must change with shifting circumstances and strategies. To see how this plays out in practice, let’s look at how the job spans for a typical market-facing sales unit at IBM evolved as a result of the strategic choices made by successive CEOs. We pick up the story in 1981, when John Opel became IBM’s chief executive. IBM had been organized into stand-alone product groups that were run as profit centers. Reacting to threats from Japanese companies, Opel wanted to reposition the business as a low-cost competitor. For purposes of increasing cost efficiency, the business was reorganized on a functional basis. The span of control for operating-core units such as manufacturing was widened dramatically, and there was a corresponding reduction in the spans of control and accountability for market-facing sales units (illustrated in the top panel of the exhibit â€Å"Three Eras at IBM†). The company also enlarged its definition of â€Å"customer. † Rather than focus narrowly on professional IT managers in governments and large companies, IBM began marketing to small companies, resellers, and distributors. It created experimental independent business units and gave resources for experimentation without imposing any accountability for performance. By the end of Opel’s tenure, IBM was criticized for confusion about strategy and priorities. As one writer noted, â€Å"IBM settled into a feeling that it could be all things to all customers. However, the effects of these problems were masked by the dramatic and unrelenting growth of the computer industry during this period. In 1985, John Akers took over as CEO. The organization he inherited was configured to develop, manufacture, and market computing hardware in independent silos. Not only were products incompatible across categories, they failed to meet customer needs in a world that was moving quickly from hardware to software and customer solutions. To get closer to customers, Akers created a unified marketing and services group, organized by region. The mission of this new market-facing unit was to translate customer needs into integrated product solutions and coordinate internal resources to deliver the right products to customers. Business units and divisions were consolidated into six lines of business. The span of control for the market-facing sales units widened dramatically. The new marketing and services group was made accountable for profit, and, as a result, many new profit centers were created. Unfortunately, the existing accounting system was not capable of calculating profit at the branch level or for individual customers and product lines. Instead, a top-down planning system run by centralized staff groups set sales quotas for individual product categories. Customer sales representatives thus had few choices or trade-offs; their span of accountability was not wide enough to support the company’s new strategy. To make matters worse, the new profit centers made the company extremely complex and fragmented, a situation reflected in the unit’s relatively narrow spans of influence and support. As the strategy’s failure became evident and losses mounted, Akers considered breaking the corporation into separate entities. Lou Gerstner took charge in 1993. He restructured the business around specific industry groups, narrowing the spans of control and widening the spans of accountability for marketing and sales units. At the same time, he widened the spans of influence by formally pairing product specialists with global industry teams, which worked closely with customers. To widen the spans of support, the company reconfigured bonuses to give more weight to corporate results than to business-unit performance. Sam Palmisano took over as CEO in 2002 and reinforced the positive changes wrought by Gerstner. The new CEO’s strategy emphasized â€Å"on-demand† computing solutions delivered through seamless integration of hardware, software, and services. This involved adopting a team-based, â€Å"dedicated service relationship† configuration at the sales units. To ensure that all employees in such a complex organization would be willing to work across units to build customer loyalty, Palmisano worked to widen spans of support further. In a well-publicized initiative, he returned the company to its roots by reemphasizing the importance of IBM values such as dedication to client success, innovation, and trust and personal responsibility in all relationships. To increase trust within the company and heighten the perception of fairness—necessary actions before people will assume responsibility for helping others—Palmisano asked the board to allocate half of his 2003 bonus to other IBM executives who would be critical leaders of the new team-based strategy. A Precarious Balance As IBM illustrates, complex strategies for large firms usually require that all the spans of key jobs widen, indicating high levels of both demand for, and supply of, organizational resources. But the potential for problems is great in any organization where all four spans are wide and tightly aligned. A relatively small change in any one of them will disrupt the balance of supply and demand and tip the organization toward disequilibrium. In the short run, of course, the dedication and hard work of good people can often compensate for a misalignment. But the more dynamic your markets and the more demanding your customers, the more critical and difficult it becomes to ensure that all four spans of organization design are aligned to allow your business to reach its performance potential. Spans of Control at Wal-Mart The spans of control for a store manager and a merchandising manager at Wal-Mart are quite different. To ensure standardization in operations, Wal-Mart gives the store manager relatively little control. To promote the implementation of best practices, the company gives the merchandising manager a â€Å"wide† setting. Creating the Entrepreneurial Gap By holding managers accountable for more than they control, a company can encourage entrepreneurial behavior. Four Spans at a Software Company The settings for a marketing and sales manager show a relatively narrow span of control and a relatively wide span of accountability. The discrepancy indicates that the company wants the manager to be entrepreneurial. A reasonable span of influence ensures that he has a respectable level of collaboration with colleagues outside his unit to compensate for his low span of control. Company policies designed to provide a wide span of support ensure that his entrepreneurial initiatives will get a favorable response. The dotted line connecting the two spans that describe the resources available to the job (span of control and span of support) intersects with the line connecting the two spans that describe the job’s demand for resources (span of accountability and span of influence). This shows that the supply of, and demand for, resources that apply to this job are in rough balance; the job has been designed to enable the manager to succeed.

Federal Government of the United States and Sequestration

Understanding Sequestration Christine Miller Webster University Author Note Christine A. Miller, Webster University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christine Miller, 21356 89th Street, California City, CA 93505. E-mail: [email  protected] net Abstract Understanding sequestration can be overwhelming. What are government sequestration and the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 and how do they impact us? Which government agencies will feel the impact the most? Are there agencies that are exempt from the sequestration?And finally, is there a way to prevent the sequestration? A budget sequester is when money under current law is used to fund the budget deficit. President Barack Obama signed into law on Aug 2, 2011 a federal statute titled The Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011. This federal statute will impose limits on discretionary programs by more than $1 trillion over ten years from 2012 through 2021. These limits are based on the Congressional Budget Offi ce baseline from 2010 (Kogan, 2011). Sequestration was technically triggered when Congress failed to reach an agreement by Jan. 5, 2012, but because the cuts do not begin until 2013, Congress really has until the end of this year to enact new legislation that would cancel or delay the cuts (OMB Watch, Nov 6, 2012). As an employee on a military installation, the impacts of the sequestration could cause short and long term effects on our contractor support. Understanding Sequestration Sequestration can be broadly defined as the action of taking legal possession of assets until a debt has been paid or other claims have been met. In government terms, a sequestration is an attempt to reform Congressional voting procedures.This is an effort to make the size of the Federal government's budget deficit a matter of conscious choice rather than simply the outcome of an appropriations process. A process in which no one ever looked at the cumulative results until it was too late to change them. If the appropriation bills passed separately by Congress provide for total government spending in excess of the limits Congress earlier laid down for itself in the annual Budget Resolution, and if Congress cannot agree on ways to cut back the total, then an automatic form of spending cutback takes place.This automatic spending cut is what is called sequestration (Johnson, 2005). What are the major elements of the BCA of 2011? First, it allowed the President to raise the debt limit by $2. 1 trillion. This limit is estimated to be enough through early 2013. Second, established limits on annual appropriations bills which cover discretionary or non-entitlement programs such as defense, education, national parks, the FBI, the EPA, low-income housing assistance, medical research, and many others; the limits reduce projected funding for these programs by more than $1 trillion through 2021.Third, it required the House and Senate to vote in the fall of 2011 on an amendment to the Constitutio n to mandate a balanced budget every year. Fourth, it established a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to produce legislation to reduce projected deficits by at least an additional $1. 2 trillion through 2021 (beyond the savings generated by the discretionary caps). And finally, the BCA established a contingency mechanism to ensure that $1. 2 trillion in deficit reduction would be achieved if the Joint Select Committee failed.This provided for automatic, across-the-board budget cuts in many programs in 2013 and reductions in each year from 2014 through 2021 in the annual caps on discretionary appropriations as well as automatic cuts in selected entitlement programs (Kogan, 2011). Which government programs will feel the impact the most? If sequestration does take place the cuts will be divided evenly between the defense and non-defense programs, approximately $55 billion each.Non-exempt non-defense programs like Head Start and education programs will have an 8. 2% cut, appro ximately $38 billion. Non-exempt non-defense mandatory programs like agricultural disaster relief will have a 7. 6% cut, approximately $5. 6 billion. Payments to Medicare providers and health insurance plans will have a 2% cut, approximately $11 billion. In addition, non-exempt defense discretionary programs will have a 9. 4% cut, approximately $54. 6 billion (OMB Watch Nov 2, 2012).This includes keeping military bases open, paying salaries and research and development. The approximately $55 billion in 2013 defense cuts will be imposed in a similar but not identical manner. The defense cuts will occur through across-the-board, proportional reductions in the funding provided for defense accounts in the appropriations bills. War costs within the National Defense function are subject to sequestration, as are defense unobligated balances carried over from prior years.Although military personnel are not exempt from sequestration the President can exempt some or all military personnel fun ding from the sequestration. This is because the funds for fiscal year 2013 will already have been appropriated by Congress. However, if he chooses that option, the cuts in other defense funding would have to increase. As of Nov 13 the President did exempt military personnel from sequestration (OMB Watch Nov 2, 2012). Which government programs are exempt from automatic cuts?A number of programs are exempt to include Social Security benefits, all programs administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, interest on the federal debt, refundable tax credits, and several low-income programs. Low-income programs that are exempt include food stamps, child nutrition programs, Medicaid, foster care, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, mandatory funding under the Child Care and Development Fund, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Supplemental Security Income program (OMB Watch Nov 2, 2012). So what are the expectations for 2014 and beyond?The process for 2014 and out is quite different. The required defense funding cut of approximately $55 billion in each year from 2014 through 2021 will occur through reductions in the annual statutory caps on defense funding that the Budget Control Act sets for each of those years if sequestration is triggered. Unlike in 2013, there will be no automatic cut of all affected defense programs by the same percentage; instead, the Appropriations Committees will decide how to live within the newly reduced defense funding caps (Kogan, 2011).For non-defense programs the process will be the same as in 2013 for entitlements but different for non-defense discretionary programs. Medicare payments to both providers and health insurance plans will continue to be cut by 2 percent. However, because Medicare costs are projected to rise through 2021, the dollar amount saved will increase from $11 billion to approximately $18 billion in 2021. In years 2014 through 2012, the remaining amount of the approximately $55 billion i n non-defense cuts will be applied proportionally to other non-exempt mandatory programs and overall non-defense discretionary funding.Because Medicare will take a progressively larger share of the $55 billion non-defense cut, other non-defense programs cuts will continue to decline (Kogan, 2011). One of the biggest concerns of the sequestration is the possibility of prompting a recession in 2013. The combination of expiring tax cuts and the reductions in spending on discretionary government programs, known as the ‘fiscal cliff’, could throw the country back into recession. However, the hopes are that a budget deal would be reached in early 2013 that would retroactively cancel the sequestration.Within the Department of Defense (DoD) there is a lot of concern with sequestration and the automatic cuts that would be implemented in fiscal year 2013 if Congress fails to reach an agreement on the deficit reduction plan. The Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) is working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure the Department is ready to implement sequestration in January if it occurs. In the meantime, consistent with OMB guidance, a memo titled Guidance on Fiscal Year 2013 Joint Committee Sequestration has been issued stating that DoD needs to continue normal spending and operations.The memo states to not let our programs, personnel, and activities to begin to suffer the harmful effects of sequestration while there is still a chance it can be avoided. The memo has directed that all commanders and managers in the DoD continue the defense mission under current laws and policies, without taking any steps that assume sequestration will occur (A. B. Carter, personal communication, Sep 25, 2012). In other words, the DoD is to continue business as usual. Although it is business as usual, government contractors may feel the greatest impact.In conclusion, sequestration would have long enduring and painful effects on all aspects of government agencies, DoD and non-DoD alike. If Congress does not meet the requirements imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 DoD government contractor layoffs and potential government shutdowns may occur and non-DoD government programs, like education and Medicare, will have long term consequences. Sequestration can only be prevented if Congress passes legislation that undoes the Budget Control Act of 2011 before January 2, 2013. References Johnson, P. (2005). A Glossary of Political Economy Terms.Retrieved from http://www. auburn. edu/~johnspm/gloss/sequestration Kogan, R. (2012). How the Across-the-Board Cuts in the Budget Control Act Will Work. Retrieved October 30, 2012, from http://www. cbpp. org/cms OMB Watch (Nov 2, 2012). Mitigating the Impact of a Temporary Sequester. Retrieved November 4, 2012, from http://www. ombwatch. org/mitigating-impact-of- automatic-spending-cuts OMB Watch (Nov 6, 2012). White House and Federal Agencies Could Manage Effects of Automatic Spending Cuts in E arly 2013. Retrieved November 10, 2012, from http://www. ombwatch. org/node/12266

Sustainable Prosperity Essay - 1090 Words

â€Å"...the core values that underpin sustainable development - interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility and intergenerational justice - are the only foundation upon which any viable vision of a better world can possibly be constructed.† Jonathon Porritt Globalization and sustainability are forces that are in constant competition. In this global game there emerges a clear victor and an inevitable loss. As a political, social, and economic force, globalization has expanded to encompass our global society; it creates change. As the light falls on those affected by globalization, the practitioner and the subject are brought forth and examined. Where there is progress and prosperity for all, we bring to question the extent to†¦show more content†¦As a country progresses, its demand for natural resources—such as oil and lumber—grows; it is forced to look for internal sources and, failing that, can face a shortfall of progress. To prosper, th e economy must turn to the global economy. It is then the role of global economies to provide the resources necessary for sustaining the country and, by doing so, sustaining its prosperity. As a nation’s economy is strengthened, the consumer develops a higher purchasing power and potential; education is instituted and social services are carried out. Communication between nation increases in the interest of trade and the exchange of information because of strengthening economic ties. Lacking globalization, an economy would be forced to limits its use of resources, restricting progress. As did the natives of Brazil live off of a burn cycle, so an isolated economy would have to relocate in order to replenish or face collapse. In an interconnected world today economies cannot relocate and prosper—that period of isolation has long since ended. The global economy now seeks to encompass all people in prosperity. 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