Case Studies in Organizational Design as a Major Determinant of Employee Health and Well-Being

Elliott Jaques wrote that non-requisite organizations were often paranoiagenic in that role structures and practices created conditions that stress employees unnecessarily. The resulting personal and emotional problems often result in great cost to both the individual and organization. Jaques claimed that requisitely designed organizations were trust-inducing, and, under requisite conditions, that serious personality dysfunctions were rare. Jaques advocated fixing the organization first with the expectation that most “personality issues” would vanish, and only then dealing with the few remaining individual issues. George Reilly, a psychologist and employee assistance program counselor who is also a requisite organization consultant, writes about his experience in therapy with troubled individuals, and illustrates how the understanding of their problems, including the context of their work setting, and design of their treatment, can be improved by using requisite concepts.