Reading through Obolensky's description of common traits in organizations operating off a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) model, I immediately thought how much of the descriptions echoed what I'd read in previous classes about flat organizations....generally informal hierarchy, and for what little formal hierarchy there is, it runs more flat and dynamic and the environment has a greater emphasis on the open sharing of information and holding individuals accountable (Obolensky, 2010). I had previous written about one of my favorite game development companies, the Valve Corporation based out of the greater Seattle, WA area. Although more well known for hit gaming franchises such as Half Life and Counter Strike, they are also known in business circles for their unorthodox business practices, such as having very little in the way of formal supervisor/subordinate relationships and giving every employee to freedom to pick or start a project and quite literally roll their desk over to wherever the rest of a self-formed team is working. Even more interesting is how employees get input into what their peers get paid. (Kelion, 2013)
This is one of several examples of organizations that don't operate off of a traditional hierarchy. Thinking about these ideas in relation to my organization is interesting, for the military is fraught with traditional hierarchy for better or for worse. Indeed, there is well over 200 years of tradition dictating that there be a chain of command and that it is followed...having said that, this isn't necessarily always the case, and indeed, there is a certain expectation of there being power in the lower ranks. Although officers hold formal authority, we're still guided to look to our enlisted personnel for technical expertise, and the official Air Force Pamphlet on the enlisted force structure even explicitly states that senior enlisted personnel will mentor young officers in their development.
Having said that, while I think there will never be a day my organization moves towards an informal hierarchy, I think we will all be cognizant of the impact that every member of the organization brings to bear, and we already have a strong culture of sharing information and ideas, and holding individuals accountable for their actions (for better or for worse). We possess something of a dual cultures that combines traits of a traditional hierarchy regarding decision making and accountability, while also embracing the creativity and problem solving traits of a polyarchy type organization. The most appropriate action moving forward, I think, is to continue to leverage up and coming communication technologies to facilitate the sharing of ideas, and to continue to foster the dual culture that respects the time tested chain of command while motivating our personnel to put their ideas out there. It wasn't that long ago the Air Force did this for initiatives such as the "Every Dollar Counts" campaign, which invited all members, regardless of rank or career field, to submit ideas to leadership on how the service could curb spending. To continue to do this would be greatly beneficial for the organization, and potentially beneficial to other organizations with whom we execute our missions.
Kelion, L. (2013, September 23). Valve: How going boss-free empowered the games-maker. In BBC. Retrieved April 13, 2014 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24205497
Obolensky,
N. (2010). Complex Adaptive Leadership. Surrey, England: Gower Publishing
Limited.
No comments:
Post a Comment