1.10
THE GAS MODEL: DESIGNING
PRACTICAL ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES
Inspired by Karl Weick.Leadership processes in organizations are often so elegantly designed, they are not usable! For
instance:
- An organization spent days crafting a mission, key result, and goal statements for every
department and individual employee. These were tidily assembled into large binders,
which subsequently were rarely opened. - A task force spent countless hours developing a performance management system that
was never implemented in any meaningful way. - An enthusiastic executive returns from a time management training seminar, hastily
demands that all employees in the department start using the process taught in the sem-
inar, then wonders why others are not as enthusiastic.
This tool will help you optimally design, or redesign, leadership processes. It guides lead-
ers in making the necessary trade-offs to ensure that processes are practical and usable.
The ideal leadership process is threefold: It is simultaneously general, accurate, and simple
(GAS).
- It is General in its use (i.e., it works over a wide range of circumstances, beneficial for
executives, yet useful for frontline workers). - It is Accurate or precise in its use (i.e., it accurately describes the unique situations in all
departments—past, present, and future—without being exclusive or limiting to any one
department). - It is Simple to use (i.e., no one will need much training to use the process).
An example is an organization that wants a simple-to-use career program—no need for
large information binders and arduous training programs. If the career program is general,it
can be used in all parts and levels of the organization (e.g., systems analysts, engineers, librar-
ians, accountants, and so on). If it is accurate,the process will precisely describe the career
SECTION 1 FOUNDATIONALCONCEPTS 33
General
Accurate Simple