Defining the Primary Task (Visualizing Organisational Dynamics Series #1)

What is the one thing that your organisation (company, team, service) must do in order to survive and thrive? Is that what you are actually doing?

 

Most people working in an organisation, or leading it, will be familiar with the feeling of having to do too much with too little resources. Phrases such as ‘having to keep all the balls in the air’ and ‘I need to keep all the plates spinning’ suggest a person juggling multiple tasks, responsibilities, or commitments simultaneously. This is stressful for the individual or team and often not very effective as it is hard to determine which of the ‘plates’ is the priority and therefore deserves greater time or resources. Prioritization is crucial to effective planning and clarity on which tasks are likely to produce most gains is important for job satisfaction.

 

When we are in the middle of a whirl of competing demands, or facing deadlines and targets, it can feel impossible to determine what is most important. Most likely we will feel that everything is a priority. But sometimes we need to stand back and take stock, especially if there are signs that the pressure is taking its toll on individuals, teamwork, or the ability of the organisation to meet its aims effectively.

 

One way of thinking about this is via a consideration of the organisation’s primary task.

 

“The primary task can in theory be defined simply as the task which the enterprise must perform in order to survive. But from the point of view of efficient institutional performance it must also be clearly defined in practice. Quite simply, unless the members of the institution know what it is they are supposed to be doing, there is little hope of their doing it effectively and getting adequate psycho-social satisfactions in doing so. Lack of such definition is likely to lead to personal confusion in members of the institution, to inter-personal and inter-group conflict and to other undesirable institutional phenomena … all of which reduce the satisfactions of membership.”

Isobel Menzies Lyth¹ 

 

You may have a mission statement or company strategy, but does it define a clear primary task and, most importantly, is it one that is agreed on by everyone? The ‘task which the enterprise must perform in order to survive’ is not necessarily as obvious as it may seem. For example:

 

• What is the primary task of BMW? Is it to make cars, provide dividends to shareholders, or provide jobs for its staff?
• Is the primary task of a hospital to save lives, improve the health of the community, or to provide training to healthcare workers?
• In a startup, is the primary task to create ‘that product’ or is it to provide meaningful employment and income for like-minded individuals?

 

It may be possible to juggle all these tasks but inevitably there will be times when they compete for time, resources and energy. It does matter which is the primary task.

 

Whether or not there is a broad agreement or awareness of the primary task as defined by ‘the CEO’ this might not be the task that everyone is working on in their particular role or which they feel is the real primary task. Our perception and understanding of the primary task will vary depending on our role and function within an organisation, as well as on our personal views and feelings about the work. The finance and marketing departments of a company may relate to the task quite differently, not only because their function is different, but because the people in these departments are likely to have different backgrounds and motivations. Similarly, those working at Board or senior management levels may have different priorities and ideas about what is important to those on the shop floor. These may or may not be compatible, but it can be important to surface these different perceptions as they can be the source of tensions, dysfunction or inadequate prioritization of resources.

 

If a worker has a different understanding of the task to their boss then they might be pulling in opposite directions and one might be labelled as ‘difficult’. Discussing how each is orientated to the task may help them to develop a shared understanding and ways of accommodating what is important to the organisation and to them as individuals. In less hierarchical organisations than car manufacturers and hospitals, with dispersed or lateral leadership models, it will be harder to impose a top-down reading of the primary task and it may be something that has to be continuously worked on and renegotiated.

 

In working with organisations, I often have in mind the idea that people might be, consciously or unconsciously, working to different primary tasks. Gordon Lawrence² proposed three types of primary task that might be operating in a system: the ‘normative’, ‘phenomenal’ and ‘experiential’ primary tasks:

 

Normative = The consciously defined primary task as stated in the company articles, website or mission statement. Interestingly BMW’s mission statement up to 2020 was to be “the world's leading provider of premium products and premium services for individual mobility” but I can’t find an equivalent on their website today.

 

Phenomenal = The task that can be inferred from the way people behave and how the organisation functions – i.e. working as if this was the primary task. In a business this might been seen in profit over quality (or vice versa) or in human services organisations in providing the best possible care for individuals over consideration of these on the waiting list.

 

Experiential = The many and various motives and meaning of the work for those individuals engaged in doing it. What does the organisation represent to staff; what motivates them to work; what gives them satisfaction? Someone who trains as a nurse will have their own reasons for doing so, some of which will be unconscious drives, and that will affect what they feel to be the primary task.

 

I have developed a diagram to show, very loosely, the degree to which each type of primary task is known to the individual or team. That is, how aware they are of it operating within them and within the work; to what extent is it a conscious or unconscious phenomenon.

 

Fig 1: The Known and Unknown Components of the Primary Task

A good proportion of our orientation to the primary task will be driven by unconscious factors that operate ‘out of awareness’. Because of this, it requires particular attention to surface these factors so to that they can be consciously thought about and worked on.  This might be the role of organisational leaders, change agents or consultants.

 

I might initially approach the task through group discussions to bring to light the different perceptions and motivations in a team or Board but sometimes it can help to use drawings, photographs or other creative methods to free up thinking and dialogue. It then becomes possible to see where people have different motivations or aims and to work towards a shared understanding of the primary task in which there is clarity about each person's, or each department’s, role and contribution to the overarching purpose of the institution. Clarity of our role and tasks, with clear boundaries around them, are critical to effective job performance and satisfaction.

 

References

¹Isabel Menzies Lyth (1974). Task and Anti-Task in Adolescent Institutions. Paper read to the Conference of the Association for the Psychiatric Study of Adolescents, July, 1974. Available at: https://www.johnwhitwell.co.uk/child-care-general-archive/task-and-anti-task-in-adolescent-institutions/   

²Gordon Lawrence (1977) ‘Management development…some ideals, images and realities’, in A.D.Colman and M.H.Geller (eds) Group Relations Reader 2, A.K.Rice Institute Series [Washington, DC], 1985.