How are the command and control structures in the US Military formed and evaluated?
This sounds like the military equivalent of the business concepts of self-directed work teams and shoulder tapping and all the other latest trends. I’d go so far to say that there’s a connection, maybe even a purposeful idea of looking at business organization and applying it to the military. Which is apropos, because, let’s face it, if the military isn’t a business yet with all of the private contractors getting involved, then the military-industrial complex surely is a business and has a huge influence on politics and the course of the military. Interesting, though!: I can’t help but wonder if the idea of letting the “grunts” do the thinking or, indeed, ANY thinking, isn’t contrary to the whole philosophy of the military. Now, look, I’m being DISPASSIONATE here, I am NOT grinding an axe, but the fact is: The military wants kids who run up that hill when they’re told without thinking. And military training involves definite brainwashing concepts, including sleep deprivation and sleep
I think the military is constantly implementing different, complementary, and sometimes contradictory methods of decision-making. Even now, as we hear this chatter about decentralized decision-making, we also see attempts to give HQ-level decision-makers a live-action view of the battleground (via video from Predators, etc.), so that they can make decisions as appropriate. Ideally, one would have a situation in which HQ has a broad overview based on information from the ground, and they then pass on relevant information to front-line commanders, who are then equipped to make on-the-fly decisions based on a combination of information sources. Of course, one also wants front-line commanders to be able to make autonomous decisions in case circumstances change, or communications with HQ break down. In other words, they’re trying to deal with the problem both by bringing HQ closer (virtually) to the field, and by delegating authority to better-informed field commanders. Not sure if that hel
Thank you for the best laugh I’ve had all week. I spent 10 years in the Air Force and went through not 1 but 2 of these “revolutions”, Quality Circles and TQM. It became the standing joke that when you went to the ‘classes’ the example every instructor used was that we had to overcome the “we’ve always done it this way” paradigm. As soon as we got back to the workplace the JR NCOs would start suggesting changes and the resistence we met from the SR NCOs and Officers was, of course, “we’ve always done it this way and we’ll continue to do it this way because we say so”. The military is an amazing anachronism of organizational structure. Some of the greatest advances in technology have begun (or begun use) there but they are still essentially Cogswell’s Cogs when it comes to command structure. Classic example. Several YEARS after email became widespread (but before personal email was much of a reality) I received the following memo (on paper, of course), almost verbatim: “Colonel X must p
