A COMMENTARY ON FREEDMAN’S CROSSROAD MODEL

Introduction

In 1997, at the annual meeting of American Psychological Association, Arthur M

Freedman presented a structured model of organizational growth of an ambitious
individual, from lowest rungs up to the highest ones, through an article titled
“Pathways and Crossroads to Institutional Leadership”. The model gained quite an
amount of weight-age amongst the leading organizations across the globe and many
of them have implemented the basic concepts described in it, mostly tailored to their
own structures and systems.

As the model describes, the process of growth passes through four 135-degree
“crossroads” or shifts and five pathways or levels. “These critical career crossroads”,
in the words of Freedman, “consist of discontinuous and unprecedented changes in
the role responsibilities and accountabilities to which managers in transition must
respond. At each crossroads, people are confronted by a triple challenge: letting go
of the anachronistic responsibilities and competencies, preserving those that
continue to be useful, and adding new, discontinuous responsibilities and
consequences. Mangers in transition can cope with these demands by making
adaptive changes in their preferred activities, behavior patterns and style.”

Institutional Leader
I

Executive Manager of Several “Businesses”

III

Manager of a single “Business”

II

Supervising Manager
I

Individual Contributor

Figure 1
 Add On

Preserve

Succeeding
Let Go Developmental
Phase

Preceding Developmental Phase

Figure 2

Commentary on Crossroads

1st Crossroad:

It’s a shift from you as an “Individual Contributor” to your promotion to what

Freedman calls as the “Supervisory Manager”.
The “Individual Contributor’s role”, though typically is the entry level position for a
fresh graduate, this can mean the “only position” for many! At this level, you are
doing a specialist’s job and many people want to stay specialist! That’s why
Freedman uses the phrase “Ambitious and Upwardly Mobile Person” again and again.
Only such person would like to make a shift. In many organizations, there is an
honorary position called “consultant”. Normally, this is a senior person, almost
retired, but is required to be retained in case of some advise on some critical issues.
Such a person, as per Freedman’s Model can be positioned as the “Individual
Contributor” only.

In the normal hierarchical structure, when an individual contributor is supposed to be

promoted to a higher position*, it should not mean just to handle more special jobs
himself, but rather “get them done” mostly through other people. These “other
people” can be a few level down or up or equal to his newly acquired position. The
method can be either to command or collaborate, depending on the situation and
work content. Moreover, he himself must undergo some behavioral as well as
functional transformations. For him, the work is now a complex chain of people and
processes in which he is one of the links. Functionally, he looses visibility of the
activities at the micro-level; so he has to devise indirect ways to control them. My
experience is that no ready-made supervisory skills are useful. The person himself
has to develop them based on his own behavioral traits and the company culture.
Again, the man is luckier if he gets promoted in his own area where he was working
until then, else, there are several cases when the person finds himself elevated in an
unknown area! These shifts can be from R&D to Marketing, from Production to
Stores or from Servicing to Sales. In this case, the “let-go” and “preserve”
components of Freedman’s 135-degree shift are nothing to do with the functional
skills but only with the behavioral skills of the person.

* How to identify such a person amongst his peers? Freedman has given some
guidelines, but as per me, it has to be left to the next level bosses and their own
judgments!
2nd Crossroad:

This is the shift to what is conventionally called as the “middle management”. The
psychological aspects of the person start playing a vital role for all the levels
hereafter. Ambiguity tolerance, Judgment, Perseverance and Integrity, are the few
as listed by Freedman. This is the level when many people start reading Stephen
Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”! This is the level when people get
interested into figures(though not develop authority on it), such as “profit loss”
calculations, “Performance Index” measurements and so on. For the first time, the
need is felt to understand and get aligned with the organizational vision. A sense of
diplomacy gets developed.
At the same time, this is the position where many people suffer from sever
frustrations and boredom. The work-life balance may get disturbed. To some extent,
attrition is more in this zone. In a way, this position is similar to what psychologists
call as the “mid-life” crisis for men and women.
That’s why, this is the stage, where extensive and periodic training and executive
coaching is necessary.

3rd Crossroad:

This is a transition from the middle to the top management level. The person has to
work directly under the chairman or corporate board or the owner. This shift can be
(and many times, is) cross-organizational. The position is more or less “exposed” to
the outside world, public interests, government, stake holders etc. In a way, you
have all chance to become famous!

One of the significant prerequisite competencies at this stage is to develop non-

linear, intuitive thinking, as Freedman mentions. Now, this is a tough job! The
question is whether such kind of thinking be “learnt automatically” through
experience and contemplation or “taught deliberately” through training? Illogical as it
may seem, the first alternative is more realistic. There are a few methods, tools and
techniques which help to learn to “think intuitively”. But they may turn out to be
ineffective if the person has not internalized the lessons of real life.
The elements which are counterproductive to such kind of intuitive or free thinking
are pressures from all directions and the anxiety about the consequences of the
decisions taken.

4th Crossroad:

It is the peak of the pyramid. Here is the chairman or CEO of the company. As
Freedman rightly says, the selection process is mostly political. At this level,
however, a paradox exists. The position is actually concerned with people, whereas
for many CEOs, it is “complained” that the company exists only on papers!
And this must be true to some extent. At this level, one can and should be involved
only to develop, review and calibrate or modify the strategies, policies, vision and
goals. Then there are venture negotiations, branding and image building issues.
Acquiring government supports, handling litigations, raising money, managing
investments and controlling cash flow are as inevitable. Understanding future trends,
judging the competition in the market, tapping new opportunities ( not necessarily
for diversifications) and performing public roles are the other few work domains of
this position. This way, the operations become more or less “abstract” at this level.
Even, the money becomes “virtual”! So, it’s no surprise that the people element of
the organization practically gains a kind of “paper existence”!

What it means to us

So these are the main crossroads which almost everybody needs to “negotiate” at
each level shift. Conceptually, Freedman is not proposing something fundamentally
new. But the core agenda of his presentation is to develop the understanding that
there are discontinuities of functional and behavioral skills at each level, that it is
important to identify what is to “let go” , what is to “preserve” and what is to “add
on”, and that the organizations should develop and implement a practical and well
defined system and process for the growth of their people in the benefit of the
organization.

One of my friends in KPIT Cummins was telling me the other day that they made it
compulsory for the team managers NOT TO DO ANY TECHNICAL JOBS! Every such
activity was to be delegated to the sub-ordinates and the managers ought to do only
the managerial part of it! Now, this sounds quite in line with the Freedman Model.

Of course, before one goes even for consideration of adopting the Freedman’s Model
to some organization, it is very much essential for that organization to ensure that its
own structure is in place and if not, to establish a new one.

Many a times, the virtues as expected by the Model may appear to be quite idealistic
or theoretical. But then, it’s not all impossible to find a few of them inherently in an
individual, then nurture the ones which are missing but are necessary, through
training , mentoring or hands-on interactions, and lastly , to compromise on the ones
which are highly impossible to expect with the understanding that they may really be
impractical.

One of the benefits reaped by implementing the Crossroad Model is to establish a

fairly just system of rewards, recognition, promotion and reprimand. One can then
evaluate his subordinates more objectively and on the grounds of previously agreed
and mutually shared understanding of role responsibilities and expectations at each
level.

A small variant of the Freedman Model

The model can also be applied to the domains and areas other than the industries or
businesses. But to do that, it may be helpful to introduce a few key parameters
which will provide the basis on which each Freedman-level can be saliently
distinguished. They are as below:

• Visibility Level of the End Process or Work Activity(V)

The more one traverses towards the higher levels, the lesser is the visibility of
the micro-level activities. To operate at higher levels, therefore, one needs to
derive some indirect ways to manage the things.

• Time Vs Impact Criticality of Decision Making (T)

 Time to take a decision depends upon the span of “Impact-Space” occupied
by the implementation of that decision.
At lower levels, you have more Time-Impact space to take decisions. At
higher levels , it may appear that the decisions are taken very slowly, passing
through meetings after meetings. But when you understand the “Impact-
Space” occupied by its effect, then it becomes clear how little decision time
was available at the time of taking the decision.

• Risk Involved in Decision Making (R)

As is clear from above, the risk involved will be in proportion to the impact-
space. It is more at the higher levels.

• Liability(Responsibility) of other people (L)

With more people depending on you, the more is the responsibility carried by
you.

• Intuitive Thinking Ability Required (I)

The higher the level, lesser is the visibility of the actual situation on the field
and lesser is the information available for taking a decision. In that case, one
has to take the decision based on his intuition or judgment.

The above parameters can be applied on a scale of 1 to 10 as per their relevance at

each level . Let’s call this system of rating as VTRLI system.

Now let’s consider 2 cases.

First, a Family System. You may find it interesting to know how we can categorize
our traverse through this system, as below:

Now Children have

Children. You are a
Institutional Leader total Family head

Now Children Get

Married . Staying
Executive Manager of Several “Businesses” with you.

Married, and
Manager of a single “Business” having a child

When earning, Now

Supervising Manager Married, No child

When earning,
but Unmarried
Individual Contributor
Now the VTRLJI rating at each level can be as below:

VISIBILITY TIME RISK LIABILITY JUDGMENT INTUTION

LEVEL 5 1 6 9 8 9 9
LEVEL 4 3 6 8 5 8 7
LEVEL 3 5 7 7 3 7 6
LEVEL 2 6 7 5 2 5 4
LEVEL 1 7 8 3 1 3 2

This is just a sample rating. You may have your own views.

Second, consider a Transport System.

When driving an
Airplane Transport
carrying many
people
Institutional Leader

When driving a
Public Road
Executive Manager of Several “Businesses” Transport carrying
many people

Manager of a single “Business” When driving a 4-

wheeler carrying 4
persons

Supervising Manager When driving a 2-

wheeler carrying a
person

When Walking
Individual Contributor

Now the VTRLJI rating at each level can be as below:

 VISIBILITY TIME RISK LIABILITY JUDGMENT INTUTION
LEVEL 5 2 2 9 9 9 8
LEVEL 4 4 4 8 8 7 6
LEVEL 3 6 4 6 4 5 4
LEVEL 2 7 5 4 2 4 3
LEVEL 1 9 9 1 1 1 1

Again, this is just a sample rating and you may have your own fun!

The above two examples and the new system of rating the Freedman levels are
developed primarily to understand the crossroad model. They also indicate that the
Freedman model can be open to it’s own variants to make it suitable to your own
organization.

Written by :

Shirish Kulkarni

Proprietor ,TRANSFORMAN CONSULTING, Pune

(The writer is having a 16+ years of Industrial Experience. He has worked as an

employee for 12 years in a Consumer Electronics Company , in various capacities

from a Design Engineer up to a Project Manager. He had been to the countries

such as Japan, Singapore, Hongkong and China while handling the

responsibilities of Product development and Project Management .

Presently , he is active as an entrepreneur in the field of Embedded Systems

Development and the Corporate Training and Mentoring at various

organizations.)