This week’s readings focused on the fact that contrary to
popular belief, a significant amount of solutions to problems originate from
the lower levels of the organization.
As a result, the fact that leaders pretend to have all of the answer is
referred to the “leadership charade” (Obolensky 2012). Part of the charade is also the fact that
subordinates expect the management to have the answer to all problems even
though they know that isn’t the case (Obolensky 2012). The argument is thus why does leadership have
a problem not accepting the fact they don’t have all the answers and why does
the subordinates play along. At the
beginning of the chapter, the book asked the readers to estimate the number of
solutions that are generated at the lower levels of the organization. Being that I have seen both tactical and
strategic decisions made in the DoD, I know darn well that almost all of the
solutions come from the lower levels of command. As a result, I would say the DoD doesn’t have
this problem that many other companies have.
But why does this problem exist and what is causing it to
slowly disappear? I think the reason that
people are starting to realize that leaders don’t have the answer is threefold. As Obolensky discusses, leaders might have
been able to know everything about something in the past when the world didn’t
appear to be as complex that it is now thanks to increased communications. Now, however, the world is incredibly
complicated and organizations have so many different aspects to them it would
simply be impossible for a leader to know everything. The increase in complexity has also coincided
with an increase in overall education and specialization of the workforce. As a result, subordinates are in general much
more knowledgeable about their jobs.
Secondly, the increased communication methods allows for these ideas to
move upwards through the organization much easier than before (not to mention
the fact that flatter organizational structures means fewer people in the phone
chain which means more complete ideas getting to the necessary people). Finally, the increased communication has also
increased the transparency of organizations.
This results in 2 things: 1) subordinates have a better understanding of
what problems the organization is facing and thus can generate an appropriate solution;
and 2) subordinates are now seeing sides of the organization they weren’t privy
to before, i.e. they see that management doesn’t have the solution much more
often than in the past. There clearly is
a correlation between the amount of solutions being generated at lower levels
of the organization and the flatter organizational structures (although this is
not the case in the DoD for reasons explained last week). Some of the reasons I can think follows. A smart leader might not know the answer but
he knows where to go to get the solution.
Why bother going through levels of bureaucracy and management when you
can go straight to the horse’s mouth for the answer. Another reason could be that flatter
organizational structures leads to more interaction between the leaders and the
subordinates. This in turn means that
there is a greater familiarity between the 2 groups which results in an easier
information flow between them (i.e. it is easier to talk to someone you know than
the big bad boss – by demystifying them you make it easier to go to them with
answers). Finally, a flatter
organizational structure usually coincides with a greater emphasis on teamwork. This sense of teamwork could possibly cause
people to be more willing to put forth their ideas when they were less
emotionally attached to the organization when it was highly structured.
Looking at the blog instructions, I’m not sure I follow what
exactly is being asked in the final part of this assignment so I’m going to
answer what I think is being asked. Even
though there is a correlation between flatter organizational structures and
solutions coming from the lower portions of the organization, this is not the case
with the DoD, even though most solutions come from mid-grade officers. The decision making model in the DoD goes
something like this: a problem presents itself that needs to be solved. The problem is officially designed and then
sent to the appropriate portion of the staff that handles that type of
question. From there, the problem is
farmed out to teams of action officers who study the problem, generate multiple
solutions, and then start routing the possible solutions back up the chain
(known as the Course of Action Development).
Each person on the route back up to the deciding person reviews the
solutions and possibly puts their own inputs into it (after reviewing their
input with the action officer)(COA review).
By the time it gets back up to the decision maker, he has several fully
developed potential solutions for him to choose from, and usually a
recommendation on which one to go with (COA Comparison and Approval). This process, while structured, is exactly
what the book is saying organizations need to do. Upper level leaders in the organization just
do not have the expertise or the time to fully develop solutions, but they do
have people below them that do. While
problems are still defined at the upper level of the DoD, their solutions are
almost always generated at mid-grade officers (usually O4/O5). There is no charade in this process as both
levels understand the situation (solutions come from below). Because
of the fact that the DoD already has a very good decision making process and is
not going to move towards a flatter organizational structure, I’m going to say
that there is no effect on strategy or the dynamics within the organization.
Obolensky,
N. (2012). Complex adaptive leadership, embracing paradox and uncertainty.
Gower Publishing Company.
While I know how the decision making process works in the
DoD, a special thanks goes out to Wikipedia for giving me the exact terms used
for the process:
Military
decision making process. (2012, June 19). Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Decision_Making_Process
No comments:
Post a Comment