Bill,
I know that there are many experiences and perspectives about command and
control structures. My personal experience was that the command and
control structure in the military almost always allowed for more
flexibility and adaptability that the structure I found in many large
corporations, civil service (at municipal, state and federal government)
and nonprofits.
This is of course, a generalization so you will find exceptions even in my
experience...but, as a general rule of thumb the post-Vietnam US military
relies on the inventiveness, initiative and adaptability of its' members
at all levels of experience and authority. There are many methods and
processes used within the services to learn from their
experiences...unfortunately, these lessons learned are sometimes
dumbfounded by static mental models and the higher levels of political
power wielded by senior military and civilian leaders within the
government.
Finally, you might be intrigued by the concept of command as it is used in
the military. The lowest ranking commander in the Army is the squad
leader...usually a woman or man who has just recently emerged from the
ranks and who is quite connected and communicates with her or his
subordinates and peers on a regular basis. Operational decisions are
often clarified and adapted with a clear vision of the mission and how to
complete this mission despite the chaos of the environment. It would be
interesting to see more corporate organizations be as focused on mission
completion despite grievous setbacks as we see in the military. This
often happens despite the best intentions of ill-informed commanders at
various levels. This committment to purpose and results is the source of
the self-generative activities that I've witnessed in small and large
military organizations.
regards,
Doc
--"Richard C. Holloway" <learnshops@thresholds.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>