Document created: 31 December 03
Air University Review, January-February
1972
*With apologies to Robert Townsend, author of Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1970).
The proven adage that too many cooks spoil the broth seems to be forgotten in many headquarters. The higher the organization is in the hierarchy, the less frequently that simple truth is recalled and the worse the problem of overstaffing becomes.
Perhaps the Peter Principle, which holds that “in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence—the cream rises until it sours,” is symptomatic of a higher rule in operation: In a hierarchy, the staff tends to expand until the organization becomes incompetent (the best flowers can choke themselves out). There are two corollaries to this higher rule:
What follows is a collection of thoughts—some original, some not—on how to improve staff effectiveness and thus make personnel reductions possible. The alphabetical arrangement is for my convenience—and yours if you become interested enough to refer to them later. If you are searching for a way to make dramatic reductions or wholesale eliminations, you can skip to the section headed “Forced attrition.”
Ask yourself what you can contribute
The moment of truth for a staff member or a supervisor can be his frank response to the question, What can I contribute? An adequate answer requires thorough knowledge of the functions the group performs and clear understanding of the roles played by others in the group. Merely knowing what has been and is being done is not enough—unless maintaining the status quo is the name of the game. If it is and if you are an ambitious type, I’d suggest you look for greener pastures.
But don’t give up too easily. Most bosses want to improve their organization and will tolerate a little boat-rocking if they don’t get too wet in the process. Most of the resistance to new ideas will come from peers who may be hanging on for dear life. A few casualties among that group may be beneficial.
One way to minimize opposition is first to seek improvements within your own sphere that will have little if any direct impact on others. Your achievements may not start an epidemic, but success is usually contagious.
The search for greater effectiveness must be continuous, however, because one-shot efforts tend to be self-immunizing.
Ball, keeping your eye on your own
Some staff units get fat accumulating the work of others. There should have been a Chinese proverb that he who plays in two courts is playing with someone else’s balls. If keeping your eye on your own ball bores you because the job is too small, you ought to recommend realignment of duties.
If the job is big enough but you are still bored, you ought to request a transfer. If that is impossible, as it often is in military organizations, try sitting down with your boss and defining explicitly what is to be done and what constitutes acceptable performance (see “Job descriptions” and “Performance standards”).
Conferences, an approach to
Conferences can be useful, of course, but they can also be one of the least productive consumers of large numbers of man-hours in any headquarters. If you feel you must have a conference:
Decisions
If you want to slow the organization down, be sure that all decisions are referred to you, and treat every decision as though it were a matter of life or death.
Everyone talks about pushing decisions down the organization, and some even try to do it. You should too! But don’t expect a subordinate to make a critical decision that will bring the roof down if it turns out to be wrong. That is your job.
Conversely, if you give a man his head, don’t expect him to look over his shoulder all the time; he would get a stiff neck, and you would get poor decisions.
Expectations
“I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet that it enchants my sense.” So said Shakespeare. Whether you use imaginary relish or a carrot on a stick, your subordinates will not be long enchanted by unfilled promises of better things to come.
Motivation thrives on expectation. Because the good things in life—and in work—are limited, overstaffing will inevitably lead to individual frustration and loss of motivation.
Possible solution? Cut your staff until all who scramble can nibble on the carrots. Incidentally, since some people hate carrots, you might have to switch to relish.
Forced attrition
The vaguest rumor of forced attrition can send organizations into frenzied activity to justify their manning. Everyone, it seems, is indispensable, and vacant positions are described as millstones that force the struggling group to superhuman efforts to complete its mission. Unfortunately, the myths thus created are repeated until they become truths in the minds of their creators.
It would be naïve to assume that human nature will ever change to the point where empire building is less attractive than economy of force. Therefore, forced attrition by determined leaders is probably the only realistic way to deflate oversized organizations. Admiral Rickover’s tongue-in-cheek suggestion to reduce the Pentagon population by stopping every fourth man from entering the building in the morning may be too arbitrary, however. After all, you could wipe out an entire service staff that way!
One anonymous wag proposed a massive game of musical chairs by closing the fifth floor of the Pentagon. Then, without further crowding of the remaining offices, those who had no place to sit would be sent back to the field.
The fiscal pressures created by smaller budgets and increased personnel and equipment costs demand relief, part of which must come from smaller, and fewer, headquarters. The only way to make significant, lasting reductions is to get tough and stay tough.
Helping the boss
Staffs exist to help the boss do what he wants done. Regrettably, they tend to become self-serving. One of the evils of bureaucracy is the staff unit that defies termination. If you have people working on unauthorized projects, stop the work and tell the Manpower folks that you have found a few precious spaces for reallocation. Before you do that, however, make certain you have not been neglecting something the boss really wanted done. This may not make you a hero to the boss, since you can’t admit to him that your savings resulted from ending defiance of his orders, but you will make a few points with Manpower and with groups that are undermanned.
Job descriptions
A mutual understanding of what your staff unit is doing and of the part each man plays in it is so obviously necessary that it is often taken for granted. Most military and civil service job descriptions, however, do not describe what any individual is actually doing. They are usually larded with high-sounding duties intended to impress someone—perhaps the man from Manpower. You might have to keep, and maybe even display, those phony job descriptions, but don’t be lulled into believing them.
A good way to start getting a handle on what is really going on in your unit is to have each man write his own job description, telling it like it is. At the same time you should write a functional description of the unit, again telling it like it is. You may find that your people are doing things that are not properly a part of your unit’s responsibilities. You may also find some essential task that no one believes is his responsibility. Corrective action should be obvious.
Putting your work and your people into focus is the first step toward establishing performance standards.
Killing the goose
Occasionally a staff function is created in a time of need which, like Aesop’s goose, succeeds in laying golden eggs. But years later, even if the organization has long since gone off the gold standard, the same old gang may be found doing business in the same old way. Attempts to do away with a once-successful group will bring forth anguished cries, but killing an old goose may revitalize your flock.
Look back
Looking back may have turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, but it can help you keep on course. The first question you need to ask yourself is, What are we doing today that we were not doing a year or two ago? If your memory is poor or you are new on the job, you can put the unit’s semiannual histories to good use. Don’t overlook the reports you prepare and, particularly, those you require from others.
After you identify the things that were added to your work, the second and more difficult question is, Are these tasks still contributing to the organization’s mission? At this point, don’t equivocate. Abandon those tasks that fail to muster strong justification. Mistakes you might make by eliminating questionable activities are not likely to be crucial and can be rectified easily.
Now you are ready for the third question: Are these essential tasks really my responsibility? If you have invaded someone’s territory, get out, even if it means giving up some people along with the work.
Experienced staff officers know that once you accept an action all similar actions tend to be yours. That is true even if the original assignment was made under duress or if you were just being a good guy by picking up the work to help a temporarily overworked unit. But two wrongs don’t make a right. If you continue to accept misplaced work, you undermine the functional integrity of the organization.
Motivation
Everyone talks about improving motivation. Too often the actions taken to do so miss the mark because they are unwittingly aimed at the wrong target. Better pay and working conditions, for example, are essential to prevent dissatisfaction, but they don’t motivate people for very long.
Many good staff officers are frustrated by limited opportunity for personal growth. If a competent man can’t progress steadily from the simple to the difficult tasks during his tour of duty, you probably have too many people cluttering the scene. Personal growth in the form of expanding horizons is necessary for sustained motivation. Some authorities call it job enrichment. Call it what you will, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that more work equates to greater challenge. People need fresh perspectives.
The late Robert Benchley’s rhetorical question about life in a dogsled team is worth recalling: “Did you ever stop to think that the lead dog is the only one that ever gets a change of scenery?”
Overstaffing with education
The compulsive drive toward higher degrees has created a new form of organizational obesity—overstaffing with education! If you can really employ a Doctor of Whatever, well and good; but there are few military staff jobs that require the degree of specialization indicated by the esoteric titles of doctoral dissertations.
While master’s degrees in business administration, management, political science, and similar fields are desirable for upper-echelon staff officers, it is difficult to make a convincing case that they be required. Obviously, there are some military specialties directly related to academic disciplines that demand graduate education; but, fortunately, most students have learned to think by the time they finish undergraduate work. If they have also learned to listen, read, write, and speak, they have exceptional credentials. Fortified by professional military education and seasoned by experience, they can expect successful military careers.
Performance standards
The trouble with performance standards is that too many people want them, or want to avoid them, for the wrong reasons. One common misconception is that their real purpose is to measure people against people, particularly in that great middle group of average workers who stand cloaked in anonymity between the highly visible fast burners and the equally visible incompetents. But even the best standards are poor measures of relative effectiveness because they simply identify what constitutes acceptable performance.
Good standards are impossible to establish unilaterally and difficult, at best, to develop even after extensive dialogue between supervisors and workers. But don’t despair! Probably ninety percent of their value is derived through trying to create mutual understanding about the nature of the job and the expectations of management.
If you are successful in establishing standards, don’t be afraid to raise them on an individual basis as competence increases, but don’t fail to reward the better achievers!
Trivia, protecting people from
The best managers shield their people from distracting, routine tasks. They consider an action officer’s time more important than their own. A staff unit chief worth his salt can personally handle most of the requirements for status reports, items of interest, and the like over his morning coffee.
If the trivia load is so great you cannot cope with it in an hour or so each day, you might be tempted to create a new position sometimes mistakenly called a deputy. Don’t do it! And don’t be a coward and dump the load back on the action officers! Trivia-fighting is an honorable and rewarding profession. Your goal should be to get the important jobs done well with the minimum number of people.
Today’s protocol and command relations may not permit the frontal assault on trivia made by the Duke of Wellington in 1810 when he told the Secretary of State for War: “If I attempt to answer the mass of futile correspondence that surrounds me I shall be barred from all serious business of campaigning.” You might arrange, however, for a copy of Wellington’s letter (or this article) to find its way to your antagonist’s desk.
Understanding instructions
Following the wise admonition never to omit the obvious, we come now to the often implied, sometimes stated, but less frequently applied advice to understand instructions before starting a task.
One gimmick sometimes used to drive home the need to understand instructions is a multiple-choice test containing lengthy written instructions on how to fill in the heading (name, serial number, etc.) and how to mark the answers correctly. The last instruction is to complete only the heading, answer none of the questions, and remain seated until the instructor calls for the papers. It is shocking to find out how many people are unable to complete the task in the short time allotted.
Out in the unreal world of crash actions and impossibly short suspenses, far too much staff work misses the mark because someone failed to determine exactly what The Man wanted. Some staff supervisors seem reluctant to ask for additional guidance for fear they will appear stupid. Instead, they risk confirming their stupidity by generating unnecessarily complex responses to simple questions or, worse, by answering the wrong questions.
The problem, of course, is that a seemingly simple question often requires a complex answer unless you know the intent of the questioner. If The Man asks what the storage capacity is at some particular ammo dump, you could provide an infinite set of answers. Does he mean inside or outside storage—or both? Does he want to store rifle ammunition, iron bombs, or nuclear weapons? Even if you know he means nuclear weapons, the answers are still nearly infinite unless you know what types of weapons he is considering.
It may sound impertinent to probe The Man’s mind, but probe it you must unless you are willing to spend absurd amounts of time compiling encyclopedic responses to every question and unless he is willing to spend equally absurd amounts of time sifting through your chaff to find the grain of knowledge he needs. The implications of shotgun responses are obvious: extra people to cope with the unnecessary workload, frustrated people whose efforts are largely wasted, missed suspenses (or ridiculous working hours to meet them), and annoyed bosses.
Valedictory
If the foregoing thoughts prove useful to you, if they stimulate you to improve the effectiveness of your staff work, then these words will have lit a candle of understanding. The heat of that candle may yet thaw the frozen notions of bureaucracy.
Air War College
Colonel Bruce F. King (M.B.A., George Washington University) is Chief, Special Weapons Management and Programs Branch, J-5, Hq U.S. European Command. During World War II he was a B-24 navigator. Recalled in 1950, he has served in nuclear weapons activities at AF Special Weapons Center; Air Proving Ground Center; Air University; Directorate of Plans, Hq USAF; and on the DOD Military Liaison Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission. He is a graduate of Air Command and Staff College and Air War College.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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