Programs · By scale
The same symptom can be a different problem at a different scale.
A program is not a field taught. It is what the case needs from one field or several — and the diagnosis decides which.
A person can be clear inside a confused group. A strong group can operate inside a contradictory organization. An organization can be coherent internally and still be constrained by the wider system in which it operates.
Treat those situations as equivalent and the intervention will miss its target. Programs therefore work at four scales.
Individual
The person as agent
How one person perceives, reasons, decides, learns and acts.
Work at this scale may concern judgment, communication, routines, effectiveness, agency, leadership responsibility or the capacity to act under pressure. But an individual intervention is justified only when the problem actually sits with the individual.
Group
The group as agent
A group — a board, a unit, a working group — has dynamics that belong to no single member.
Shared assumptions, roles, communication patterns, coordination, authority, dependencies and routines can produce outcomes no individual intended. Training individuals separately will not correct a problem constituted between them.
Organization
The organization as agent
Structure, governance, decision architecture, incentives, culture, operating routines and competing priorities shape what people and groups can do.
At this scale, repeated “people problems” may be evidence of organizational design rather than individual deficiency.
Society
The wider system as agent
Regulation, profession, sector, culture, institutions and social expectations can constrain choices that appear to belong entirely inside the company.
Not every organizational problem originates within the organization.
Scale is not seniority
Where does the problem actually exist as a problem?
Individual does not mean junior. Organization does not mean executive. A CEO can be the relevant individual. A board can be the relevant group. A multinational can be the relevant organization.
And because the scales interact, a program may enter at one and need coherence from several. Changing one level while the others continue to reward the old pattern is one reason apparently successful interventions fail to hold.
From diagnosis to results
The point of entry is a decision, not a default.
The diagnosis decides where the program starts — and what else has to hold for it to work.