Rol Fessenden asked
>I would be very interested in hearing Bill's views on whether the military
>process can be applied broadly in the business environment. It is very
>appealing in many ways. What would it look like? What would employees
>experience that is different than now? What would management do
>differently?
Wow! The short answer is yes and no. The long answer may be a book or
two.
I think that there are many organizations that establish environments in
which ordinary people grow and succeed far beyond their own expectations.
Because military organizations in particular ask of their people behavior
that often contradicts survival instincts they learned how to build a
whole ethic that challenges their people to go behave above their own
expectation.
I am afraid that some of the answer is counterintuitive for many people
who understand the military as autocratic in nature. In day to day
practice military units are so interdependent on the capabilities of each
member of the unit they cannot be effective as autocratic hierarchies.
IMHO the reason such interdependence does not surface in the conversations
and writings of military people is that it is one of those assumptions
that is so common as to be below consciousness.
Let me take the no answer first. Really effective military units operate
from a base of tradition. In the submarine service - the Silent Service -
the tradition is one of all volunteers, all qualified and wearing Dolphins
each unit fully capable in its mission without having to refer to higher
authority. Very independent people and units. The Marine Corp never
leaves a wounded or dead Marine behind - their whole attitude is that each
Marine is the best and a brother - they take care of their own. The
tradition is long - hundreds of years - and is consciously passed on to
every person joining the group. And, if you don't accept the tradition
you are either expelled or allowed to leave.
Don't allow me to omit the Army, Airforce, Coast Guard or other military
units. I am much more familiar with the two above. I think I can include
some other diverse organizations and would like to hear comments. The
Peace Corps have a tradition and esprit, the Salvation Army, religious
orders and perhaps others have the tradition that underpins leadership.
This tradition, and some atmosphere of exclusivity, gives the organization
an aurora that attracts people. I don't particularly like 'exclusivity'
in this context. It is more that the people who are in this organization
are somehow more capable than those not in the organization. I would
think that people in the catalog mail order business would think that LL
Bean people are somehow special. I am a consultant and would like to
think that I could work with McKinsey on their level. (I suspect that
this may be a grass is greener syndrome).
The flip side of this answer is that very few
business/industrial/governmental organizations have this tradition or have
it and make productive use of it. The tradition seems to me to be an
encapsulation of the organization's values that are easy for all its
member's to understand. A Navy quotation is a good example, "Where
principle is involved be deaf to expediency". There is much written in
management literature about the value of guiding values and the failure of
businesses to walk their talk. Arthur Daniels Midland has a vision that
they will pay their suppliers more and charge their customers less - I
wonder whether they live to that in every transaction.
Military organizations establish a set of hurdles for every person that
joins the organization, it is called boot camp. During this short
intensive period the new employee is - yes - indoctrinated into the
organization's values. Coming out of this indoctrination the new person
has the beginning of a shared view of the organization, including some
shared values. I can take a brand new Ensign or Lt Junior Grade and place
him or her in a leadership position responsible for the welfare and
performance of twenty or so valued people. These are entry level people
who may not know what to do, but they do know how to act.
I don't know of many businesses that take new college graduates and give
them this level of responsibility. I don't think they can. The lack
productive use of (values) tradition is just one reason for this unbelief.
Can the military model be successful in non-military situations. Yes, I
have personally made it work and have experienced organizations in which
it works. What is needed is a kind of open, collaborative, value driven
atmosphere this list calls a Learning Organization. In the early 1960s I
was privileged to be a member of a submarine crew that participated in
building the submarine in the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock
Company. The company's motto was "We build good ships, at a profit if we
can, at a loss if we must but, we build good ships." Their ethic in their
design and management groups was 'Southern Gentlemen', on the waterfront
the ethic was of fine craftsmen. We all learned together and built good
ships - and had fun doing it.
I think the fundamental mental shift business people must make is that
they should not 'manage' the business, rather they must lead their people.
The business needs some guidelines, values, that are not to be broken.
The behaviors expected of their people should be universally understood
and the goals and business objectives explicitly stated. Then leaders
turn their people loose and help them avoid disasters. I had a young Lt.
Junior Grade order a turn right into a coral reef - I summarily
countermanded that order the results would have been disastrous. After a
short conversation about why I changed the order the young officer had
control of the ship back, and he did beautifully. I have had a project
manager or two who made similarly almost ruinous mistakes that were easily
corrected and explained so that they could be turned loose again.
My basic assumption is that people want to succeed and will work hard to
do a good job. What they need is an atmosphere in which they are allowed
to do it their way (within some guidelines) and the confidence that as
long as the boss is there he or she will prevent fatal mistakes.
What the business leader needs is the
1. courage to turn people loose,
2. acumen to detect potential disasters and how to put people back on
track without putting them down,
3. wisdom to help his or her people to learn from both mistakes and failure,
4. vision to see roadblocks that would prevent success,
5. authority to clear the roadblocks, and
6. sense of fun that helps people celebrate their accomplishments.
Isn't this a tall order for most organizations? I would bet that everyone
on this list has experienced one organization or one team that had, or
has, these attributes. And, I would bet that, that experience is a peak
experience that is referred to fondly. I know that if the Navy asked me
to take a submarine to sea again I'd do it in a heartbeat.
I'm sorry that I rambled too long. This is, personally, a visceral issue
in my work with organizations - including my own. Please jump into the
dialog, we all learn from each other.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's better at sea ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bhobler@cpcug.org Still a Submariner
William J. Hobler, Jr. Preferrably Bill
The hardest things to do are those most easily said. Just try
one day of doing unto others as you would have done to you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ ; ) ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~