We ended the last Post thinking about the role of the paranoid-schizoid position vis-a-vis the depressive position - another major plank in this model but in this teaching programme, one for a slightly later date.
That is because here, we are first going to look at another major plank in the Open Systems half of this model, i.e. the role of the Primary Task: The concept of the Open Systems model was first described by Kurt Lewin and later developed in the 1950s in the Tavistock Institute by A K Rice and Eric Miller. Open Systems theory includes a set of concepts required for the development of these theories and one of its central planks, is the concept of the Primary Task.
Open systems theory claims that every organisation has, at any moment, a primary task, and that that is 'the task that it has to perform if it is to survive'
The definition of the primary task then illuminates the hierarchy among the various activities existing simultaneously in the organisation - determining the dominant import-conversion-export process and consequently the importance of the various sets of activities.
In addition, this concept opens up the possibility of considering different organisational structures based on different definitions of the primary task and of comparing them.
Before we go further into this concept and get lost in the theory itself, let's think of an organisation, say, a car manufacturer. The task that it has to perform to survive is surely selling cars for a profit so that it can make more cars and make money for its owners.
But...it can only sell cars if another part of the organisation makes them and if yet another part of the organisation lets people know that they exist to be bought i.e. a marketing/advertising department. So, in this model it is understood that any organisation will have sub-parts, all each of which will have their primary task.
These primary tasks do not have to be at odds with each other but rather, an open discussion about their differences and how they overlap helps all to understand each others part of the whole and how together they can make the whole function better.
If we now move from the world of manufacturing in the private sector to the world of Mental Health in the public sector and lets be more specific and think about a Psychotherapy Service where the INPUTS are referrals, the CONVERSATION PROCESS is the psychotherapy and the OUTPUTS are discharges or drop-outs.
So, what is the Primary Task of this organisation/team service....in other words, what is the function that it must perform in order to survive? Again surely, the answer must be clearly that of treating patients who come through the referral pathway in that wider Mental Health Service i.e. the NHS Mental Health Trust of which it is a part.
We have already learnt that if the boundaries around this service are too porous then the system will become flooded, inappropriate referrals will be accepted and do poorly, staff will be overwhelmed and/or demoralised and the system/service will go into decline.
But, if the boundaries are not porous enough, then the wider service (Mental Health Trust) will find the Psychotherapy Service less and less relevant to its needs and the service will be at risk of closure/dispersion etc.
So, how do we link the concept of the Primary Task to this wider concept? Well, if staff/team members think that the Primary Task is, say, treating a lesser number of referrals/patients for longer time-spans, say, for three years, twice per week then that is what they will advocate doing, come what may and the wider organisation can 'like it or lump it'.
The obvious problem here is that the wider organisation may not quite think of it this way but over time they may well, one way or another not 'like it' and so, 'as it were, 'lump it'.
Why might team members take on this potentially 'suicidal' stance though?
Well, it was Gordon Lawrence who developed the idea of the Primary Task as a tool for the analysis of an organisations activities and who claimed that, at any given time, the different members of the organisation fulfill different primary tasks.
To clarify this concept and to enhance its usefulness he sub-sectioned the Primary Process into three differing versions of this concept with different staff members following more one than another, with important gaps between them undermining the Team.
Some staff may follow the NORMATIVE Primary Task - the one that has been formally decided upon and openly declared - usually by the head of the organisation and sometimes declared as a Mission Statement.
Others are active in pursuing the EXISTENTIAL Primary Task - the one that they believe that they ought to attain and which is derived from their own interpretation of their roles in the specific set of activities they are placed in.
Finally there is the PHENOMENOLOGICAL Primary Task - the one that can be deduced (say, by an outsider) from the actual activity of the Team.
Looking at these three categories of the concepts and the discrepancies, if they exist, between them, can offer us important insights about the organisation of the team and the relationship between its components.
If this seems rather theoretical and too abstract don't worry - in our next post we will look at example of how these three categories of the wider concept - the Primary Task - might look like and play-out in several different settings.
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