A story about hierarchy in the military
Chip Ransler (of Second Road) gave me the book Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art Of War to read. I have not yet had time to read it all the way through, but I’ve enjoyed opening it at random and reading various parts of it. Since the American military is one of the largest hierarchical organizations in the world, studying it can remind us of the strengths and weaknesses of hierarchy. This following anecdote, from page 188, brings across one of the worst aspects of hierarchical organizations:
A story is told in the Pentagon of a colonel waiting in the outer office of a four-star general. The colonel’s face is twisted in anguish. He looks at his watch and he looks down the hall and he looks over his shoulder at the general’s door. Everything about the colonel shows a man twisted and torn by powerful emotions.
Moments earlier a subordinate had rushed to inform the colonel that his wife called to say their house was on fire. Her call was suddenly cut off, presumably by the fire. The colonel did not know if his wife was safe, if his children were safe, or if his house was burning to the ground. Every ounce of his being as a husband, every iota of his soul as a father, dictated that he drop everything to rush to his family. Yet he stayed. The chance to have a one-on-one meeting with a four-star general, the chance to advance his career, is more important.
Such is the way of life for many in the Pentagon.
This is an extreme case, of course, but it serves as a reminder about the sometimes twisted incentives that hierarchy puts in place. When an organization is hierarchical and big enough to be isolated from outside forces (even when that isolation later turns out to have been a bit of an illusion) then the internal politics of the organization become the main source of reward, validation, threat and competition. The effect can be deadly in for-profit companies. Instead of focusing on competing with outside threats, the managers of such firms focus on competing with their fellow managers. When I think of some of the American giants who’ve struggled through hard times (IBM in the early 90s, General Motors now) I sometimes wonder how it was that the organizations didn’t see the crisis coming which eventually hit them. In all such situations, one of the first things I suspect is too much hierarchy.