Great piece! Very Rickover-ian, and reminded me of this:
"Unless the individual truly responsible can be identified when something goes wrong, no one has really been responsible. With the advent of modern management theories it is becoming common for organizations to deal with problems in a collective manner, by dividing programs into subprograms, with no one left responsible for the entire effort. There is also the tendency to establish more and more levels of management, on the theory that this gives better control. These are but different forms of shared responsibility, which easily lead to no one being responsible—a problems that often inheres in large corporations as well as in the Defense Department."
Setting aside the specific prescriptions here, I can’t think of a worse way of putting it. There is no better way to destroy a successful, or even just functioning, program than to focus on who is in charge. Effective programs rely on a network of people who work together, often more through informal channels than through the hierarchy. Leadership in such cases has almost nothing to do with being in charge in any conventional sense and everything to do with the ability to articulate and share a vision that motivates the team. Government structures can indeed make that difficult, but efforts to reinforce the hierarchy just lead to the least competent rising to the top and real productivity falling pretty much in direct proportion to the ego of the manager who is supposed to be in charge. This is being clearly demonstrated in real time right now.
Really enjoyed this. Glad you are doing this work.
That makes two of us!
Great piece! Very Rickover-ian, and reminded me of this:
"Unless the individual truly responsible can be identified when something goes wrong, no one has really been responsible. With the advent of modern management theories it is becoming common for organizations to deal with problems in a collective manner, by dividing programs into subprograms, with no one left responsible for the entire effort. There is also the tendency to establish more and more levels of management, on the theory that this gives better control. These are but different forms of shared responsibility, which easily lead to no one being responsible—a problems that often inheres in large corporations as well as in the Defense Department."
https://govleaders.org//rickover.php
<starts rubbing face>
Setting aside the specific prescriptions here, I can’t think of a worse way of putting it. There is no better way to destroy a successful, or even just functioning, program than to focus on who is in charge. Effective programs rely on a network of people who work together, often more through informal channels than through the hierarchy. Leadership in such cases has almost nothing to do with being in charge in any conventional sense and everything to do with the ability to articulate and share a vision that motivates the team. Government structures can indeed make that difficult, but efforts to reinforce the hierarchy just lead to the least competent rising to the top and real productivity falling pretty much in direct proportion to the ego of the manager who is supposed to be in charge. This is being clearly demonstrated in real time right now.