Organizational Diagnostic Model - Weisbord’s Six-Box Model (1976)

19 August 2013, Singapore: Weisbord (1974) proposes six broad categories in his model, these categories included (1) purposes, (2) structures, (3) relationships, (4) leadership, (5) rewards, and (6)helpful mechanisms.

(source: Leadersphere, Inc. (2008), Organizational Diagnostic Models) 

Weisbord refer and defined them as follow  ...

1. Purposes of an organization are the organization’s mission and goals.
2. Structure as the way in which the organization is organized e.g., by function; or by product, program; or project.
3. Relationships is the ways in which people and units interact. It also included in the way in which people interact with technology in their work.
4. Rewards are the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards people associate with their work.
5. Leadership refers to typical leadership tasks, including the balance between the other categories.
6. Helping mechanisms are the planning, controlling, budgeting, and information systems that serve to meet organizational goals. 

Listed below are samples of some of the questions he poses are as follows:

• Purposes: Do organizational members agree with and support the organization’s mission and goals?
• Structure: Is there a fit between the purpose and the internal structure
• of the organization?
• Relationships: What type of relations exist between individuals, between departments, and between individuals and the nature of their jobs? Is their interdependence? What is the quality of relations? What are the modes of conflict?
• Rewards: What does the organization formally reward, and for what do organizational members feel they are rewarded and punished? What does the organization need to do to fit with the environment?
• Leadership: Do leaders define purposes? Do they embody purposes in their programs? What is the normative style of leadership?
• Helpful Mechanisms: Do these mechanisms help or hinder the accomplishment of organizational objectives?