Air University Review, November-December 1982
Colonel Roy Dale Voorhees, USAF (RET)
After 30 years in the United States Air Force—11 of them in the Pentagon— followed by 11 years as an associate professor at a large Midwestern state university, I sometimes—particularly after an intense committee meeting or problem-solving session—have trouble remembering which organization I am serving. If one is not paying close attention, the same organizational rules, personalities, and behavior patterns become strikingly similar and seem to take over with a sort of timeless indifference. As experience at the university continues, I am haunted by the uneasy feeling that I have observed this organizational scenario before and know how it will end. I had assumed that the academic and military professions and organizations were very different, but continuing experience tends to temper that conclusion.
"Aren’t the products or services of academia and the military entirely different, that is, doesn’t one make war on people and the other educate people?" The products are different, of course, but both organizations have similar problems measuring and evaluating their products. For example, the military perceives its product to be a vital, intangible service called national security. It is epitomized by many terms and slogans such as "strategic deterrence" or "Peace is our Profession." How does one measure success or failure for such a product? How does one know when there is enough, too much, or too little?1 Suppose, for example, too little investment is made in the military. By the time the deficiency was detected, a holocaust could be on a nation, and it would be much too late for corrective measures. On the other hand, if the military is successful and manages to postpone or avoid conflict, the community will probably be unwilling to recognize a job well done.*2
*In the Department of Defense, one becomes accustomed to living with this loaded situation. If the holocaust were avoided, society never extended any recognition for success, but if a deficiency or failure developed in national security policy or in military operations, society was quick to recognize it and look squarely at the defense establishment for the direct identification of culpability.
The education community, on the other hand, perceives its task to be "academic excellence," although there is some dichotomy as to the priority ranking of how to achieve or identify it. In general, the task is perceived to be teaching (and counseling), scholarship (and publication), and service to the university and community. The participant observer has found this task as intangible and difficult to measure in terms of success, failure, or adequacy of investment as does the military. In general, the education community is also spring-loaded for accountability with the same open-ended responsibility as the military. In the event of failure, academia is directly responsible; but success for the most part goes unrecognized and unrewarded.
Thus, responsibility for the products of the two communities is similar. This similarity derives mainly from the intangible nature of the products, the difficulty of measuring success or failure, and the fact that both depend largely on public support. In both instances, the products are vital to community interests, and failure in either can have the most serious consequences for the future of the community.* In both situations, the community provides most of the financial support, then delegates most of its responsibility to the leaders of each profession, and ultimately relies, with little faith and much hope, on the leaders’ professionalism.
*Even though failures in education may be even less measurable than reversals in the national security field, in both the penalty for failure is severe--death, or ignorance, or both.
The selection of leaders, generally achieved through the promotion process, poses difficult problems for both communities. These problems derive from the intangible nature of the products and the difficulty of measuring the productivity of the participants. Yet although each of the communities has separate procedures to deal with this measurement problem, the final results are similar.
The military community traditionally has used rating procedures administered by the senior management to judge performance. To be promoted and selected for leadership positions, one must be judged to be an excellent or outstanding performer by practically all of one’s raters—as many as 50-75 over a 30-year career. Each military rater has the potential to destroy or severely limit a career by submitting one mediocre or poor rating, but he does not possess the corollary authority to promote or make a career. This situation gives rise to the axiom, "Everybody can break you, but no one can make you!" Failure to be selected for leadership can result in either early retirement at a rank usually no higher than lieutenant colonel (05) or to be passed over and compulsorily separated from the service.3
The education community traditionally has used the granting of tenure as the selection method to distinguish personnel capable of professional growth, promotion, and retention. Those not selected for tenure are usually separated from the university. In academia, the critical component of the selection procedure is peer evaluation, i.e., judgment by one’s peers as to one’s professional capability and potential for continued growth and service. Peer authority does cause a perceived difference between academia and the military. It is the foundation for the collegial organization, wherein all the faculty have at least a nominal responsibility, from the bottom up, for the welfare and effectiveness of the university. However, this perceived difference is in reality little different from the service or unit loyalty that is such an important part of military service. It is important to note that in both communities the selection and promotion procedures are focused as much on identifying and excluding the least competent as to identifying and promoting the truly outstanding leaders. The effect is that both communities end up with a large group of basic competents, which also includes some potentially outstanding leaders.4
In spite of some perceived differences, the ultimate responsibilities of faculty and military managers are broadly similar. Both institutions are staffed by serious professionals dedicated to their tasks. Both are self-policing, albeit with different procedures, with the objectives of developing leadership from within their own professions and organizations. Public trust and hope for effective performance, then, is placed ultimately in the professionalism of the members. Both professions have a serious responsibility to inform society as to their needs and conditions. Interaction with the public does reluctantly take place in both communities but not always with enlightened enthusiasm.
Education, as a whole, may not have the same rational and detailed organizational order as the Department of Defense, but most universities have organizational structures with pronounced similarities. The university president may be compared to the Army division commanding general or the numbered air force commander—on approximately a two-star level. The president usually is served by a staff of vice-presidents (mostly colonel status) with perhaps one senior (one-star) vice-president of academic affairs who would be "more equal" than his fellow vice-presidents. Subordinate to the university president are individual colleges, which compare with USAF operational wings or Army brigades. Most colleges are headed by deans, who correlate closely to many one-star commanders of similar subordinate line organizations. In both communities, I have found that the deans (generals) are usually either basically competent or highly qualified, distinguished leaders. One usually does not find incompetents.
Among the basically competent, there are the young and ambitious persons, believed by higher leaders to have potential for future excellence but lacking direct experience; or older persons who have fewer observable ambitions yet who have had much professional experience but perhaps have had little opportunity to demonstrate excellence and leadership. For the most part, the young and ambitious deans (generals) are, organizationally speaking, "on the make." Each is seeking security in his new position, and each is seeking to show that he has great potential for growth and promotion. In his first assignment, he will usually set out to enlarge his immediate staff by adding quasi-clones who share similar philosophic viewpoints and ambitions. Such a move usually requires releasing older staff personnel with diverse viewpoints because diverse views are inconvenient at best and detract from the appearance of unity and teamwork. Above all, the young deans (generals) must make their mark on the organization. This, they believe, is accomplished by action and not by quietly managing the new office and encouraging the subordinate units to cooperate.5
The distinctive motivation of the young ambitious dean (general) is upward mobility.6 Such mobility is made possible by staff enlargement, physical facility enlargement, and other signs of progress. Such progress requires notice as much, if not more, than performance. Notice means—"to be seen being successful."7 "Being successful" is the impression in an observer’s mind as to how the young dean (general) would look in another upwardly oriented position. Therefore, it is important that the young upwardly mobile dean (general) create the impression of accomplishment, action, and personal involvement in the fast-moving management scenario in which he plays the central role of the bright, innovative, involved, busy, responsible, and brilliant leader. This posture and impression need not, and frequently does not, need to be rooted in reality. Indeed, it has been observed that the higher one moves, the more isolated one becomes from reality.8 This would appear to be true of both communities.
The older and more experienced dean (general) may have different motivation. He probably has been seasoned by long years of working and socializing within familiar organizational guidelines. Therefore, he is more apt to make fewer changes at the top or within his own office. Emphasis may be more on continuity and resisting change. In many ways, the older dean (general) has organizational security and does not have the same intense need to establish himself on an upward career path as his younger colleagues. Usually he is not as ambitious. As a result, younger members of his organization may become restless because of the lack of progress or change. The basically competent older dean (general) may aspire to be recognized as a "solid professional" who values dependability and reliability and may view change with suspicion.
Those operating organizations that have received a new basically competent dean (general), young or old, frequently continue to operate and produce with the same systematic, phlegmatic rhythm and schedule as they did prior to the executive change. Thus, the changes, or lack thereof, taking place in the front offices by the new actors fortunately have little real effect—for better or worse—in either academia or the military. The staff reorganizations, changed methodologies, the new meetings, new directions, new personnel groupings, and new enlarged office arrangements are simply the price both communities must pay for progress—or is it simply change?
Fortunately, in both communities, outstanding leaders, young and old, occasionally emerge from the large group of basically competent professionals. These outstanding deans (generals) make fundamental improvements and progress, not just change. Progress is felt from "tail-end Charlie" in the military to the newest instructor in the academic setting—perhaps the same leadership capability in different settings. It can be quickly recognized and differentiated from cosmetic changes in the front offices. The dominant common characteristic of these outstanding leaders is that, above all, they have a sense of the direction in which they want the organization to move. Whether this direction is appreciation of the role the military unit plays in a larger scenario or whether it is educational philosophy for faculty, outstanding deans (generals) have a similar sense of direction.
Operating organizations responsive to the deans and generals are academic departments and operational groups, respectively. Academic departments, organizationally speaking, center around a discrete discipline such as history, English, or economics. These line departments are managed by chairmen and heads, who compare to colonels as line commanders of operating groups. In the educational community, the difference between chairmen and heads is the duration of their appointment. Chairmen are appointed for fixed periods, such as three, four, or five years in much the same manner as officers are assigned to command positions. Unlike the military, however, heads are theoretically appointed for life. This difference prompted one very wise dean to observe that chairmen rotate and heads fall!
Operations take place within departments (groups). Each department has a specific task or mission and the personnel and other resources to carry out that task. In the academic community, the "troops who march" on the "order" of the chairmen are the professors, associate and assistant professors, and instructors. They teach classes and perform other scholarly work in their areas of expertise. In an organizational sense, their work compares to the scheduled and nonscheduled responsibilities of operational group officers and staff who fly or perform operational assignments as scheduled by the group commander. There are differences in the content of the assignments, but in both communities, it is at these levels where real productivity and performance take place.
In both communities, real productivity is enhanced by truly successful senior professors and colonels who for one reason or another are no longer on an upward career course. In the military, such colonels are sometimes referred to as "beyond their professional menopause" although some in this group are considered to be the most valuable members of the profession.9 Likewise, in academia, some senior professors not involved in administration frequently become the most valuable teachers, researchers, and leaders in their profession.
One may be surprised at how similar one’s professional dilemmas and motivations can become in both communities. In each there is motivation for peer or service acceptance and approval. There is also the ever-present urge to identify oneself with the goals of the organization—instead of the classical motivation for maximum private gain—and the companion hope that by appropriate effort, and perhaps by self-negotiation, one can accommodate the organizational goals to one’s own.
Persons in both communities tend to be assimilated into their individual organizations, and their motivations are then molded td the unique imperatives of these organizations. Such a situation is not new. In the past, men (today one would say persons) joined the Marine Corps, became Air Force pilots, or joined the Army not for financial gain but because they were proud to become identified with those organizations and their goals. They chose to join the service not for self-enrichment but because they believed, or were easily convinced, that their service was enhancing and for high and noble causes, i.e., democracy, national security, or world peace.10
Likewise, no one becomes a faculty member in search of gold. Faculty members should be motivated by higher purposes symbolized by the objectives of the university; i.e., search for knowledge, academic excellence, the rewards of teaching, etc. The faculty member who identifies with these objectives feels enhanced and satisfied, perhaps even noble and proud.
In both communities, then, there are strong drives for peer approval and for organizational acceptance. Indeed, in both communities, organizational objectives are substituted for personal goals.11 The exception is the person who leaves the service or the university for what both communities term "the real world" for private gain. Those who stay must recognize that the truly successful military or university professional must, as a top priority, be trusted, respected, and accepted as an honest, competent person by one’s colleagues. In both communities there is the problem of identifying the truly successful professional and separating him from those who have simply been promoted and, therefore, appear successful. The success of the latter is based on "a careerist ethic," which holds that it is more important to be promoted and identified as successful than to be honorable, honest, and, of course, competent. In either community, the models of success become self-perpetuating. When certain kinds of people get ahead, they teach others on the way up to act the same way, or quit. Both communities share the dilemma over this conflict and should maintain close watch over their models for success.12
One must also note the dissimilarities. Most important and noteworthy is the proclivity of the typical military representative to be, in the words of Anthony Jay, a commissar. He defines the commissar as a man of action. Put him in charge of something and he will sort it out, keep everyone on his mark, and make the system work efficiently. He has had few innovative ideas and rarely questions the assumptions on which his orders are based. If there is an iceberg ahead, he will run straight into it. Commissars do not need to be prodded. They have sufficient drive and enjoy the work of doing—not the contemplation of a thing. They are the engines that pull an organization along, but the tracks need to be planned and laid down by someone else. Action is the commissar’s God, and his Weltanschauung is that old military axiom, "Do something even if it is wrong."13
On the other hand, many in the academic community tend to be yogis. The yogi is a contemplative person, a thinker. In business or industry, such a person would be in the research and development labs or in the design and planning office where he performs in a remarkably innovative manner. In the academic community, this person is found in the trenches—teaching his classes, doing research, publishing, debating endlessly with his colleagues, and enjoying the pure intellectual acts of examining and discarding every possible idea or hypothesis. But a yogi cannot organize or run anything. Put him in charge of an office or organization and disaster ensues. Further, the yogi hates such an assignment because contemplation is his forte; action is his bane.14
Few are pure commissar or pure yogi, but most people tend to polarize around one or the other. Although there are certainly yogis in the military community (who are sometimes brilliant when properly assigned as staff officers), success in the military more often is based on emulation of the commissar. Within the educational community, on the other hand, the model to be followed for career success is the yogi. Indeed, the commissar is frequently viewed as an inferior being.
Often both communities make the tragic mistake of selecting yogis for commissars and vice versa. For example, the university community frequently selects one of its outstanding professors, a well-published research-oriented yogi, for administrative responsibilities. The results are predictably disastrous for the organization and the individual. The organization becomes chaotic, and the individual becomes devastated and unhappy. Usually he cannot wait to get back to the laboratory or his classroom. On the other hand, the military community frequently selects an outstanding young commissar for assignment to a choice staff and planning assignment. Generally, this commissar cannot wait to get back to the field or his favorite organization where "the real action is." The staff duties in which he is engaged may really be much more important, may be laying the tracks for that favorite organization in the field but the contemplation needed in that process results in no enjoyment or satisfaction for him.
Both communities are hierarchic organizations and attempt to perpetuate organizational arrangements that have brought success in the past. The training, indoctrination, and selection process for role models are also geared toward what has worked in the past. Each community perceives its role models for success to be dissimilar—indeed opposites. It may well be that within both communities there is that rare person who is a combination of yogi and commissar, who is both a brilliant original thinker and a vigorous, decisive man of action. But the hierarchies of both organizations have been reinforcing their own prejudices for so long that they would rarely believe it even if it were true. To quote Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper:
Any society, so long as it is, or feels itself to be, a working society, tends to invest in itself: a military society tends to become more military, a bureaucratic society more bureaucratic, an academic society more academic, as the status and profits of war or office or education are enhanced by success, and institutions are framed to forward it. Therefore, when such a society is hit by a general crisis, it finds itself partly paralyzed by the structural weight of increased social investment. The dominant military official or commercial classes cannot easily change their orientation: and their social dominance, and the institutions through which it is exercised, prevent other classes from securing power or changing policy.15
There are similarities and dissimilarities in the academic and military communities. The similarities in the two professions surprised me because of my initial assumption that the two professions are really very different. Players who have been in both communities need to be ever mindful of which field they are playing on. The turfs and one’s teammates can look alike in many ways.
Iowa State University, Ames
Notes
1. Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program 1961 -1969 (New York, 1971), p. 160.
2. Robert S. McNamara, The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office (New York, 1968), pp. 90-99.
3. William L. Hauser, "The Army Career Officer System: A Continuing Need for Professional and Managerial Reform," The Bureaucrat, Fall 1979, p. 8.
4. Jeffrey Pfeffer, "The Ambiguity of Leadership," Academy of Management Review, January 1977, p. 106.
5. S. G. Green and T. R. Mitchell, "Attributional Processes of Leaders in Leader-Member Interactions," Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1979.
6. James D. Thompson, Organizations in Action (New York, 1967), pp. 140-41.
7. Maureen Mylander, The Generals: Making it Military Style (New York, 1974), p. 45.
8. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York, 1970), p. 309.
9. James Fallows, National Defense (New York, 1981), p. 150.
10. Cincinnatus, Self-Destruction: The Disintegration and Decay of the United States Army during the Vietnam Era (New York, 1981), p. 84.
11. Fallows, pp. 170-72.
12. Charles C. Moskos, "Making the All-volunteer Force Work: A National Service Approach," Foreign Affairs, Fall 1981, p. 34.
13. Anthony Jay, Management and Machiavelli: An Inquiry into the Politics of Corporate Life (New York, 1967), pp. 114-30.
14. Ibid., p. 149.
15. Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Rise of Christian Europe (London, 1965), p. 184.
Note:
A preliminary version of this article was presented as a paper at the Midwestern Business Administration Association (MBAA) meeting in Chicago in March 1982
Contributor
Colonel Roy D. Voorhees,
USAF (Ret) (B.S., Georgetown University; M.B.A., George Washington University), is an associate professor in the School of Business Administration, Iowa State University, Ames. In the Air Force he served as a combat pilot, planner at Hq USAF, intelligence staff officer, embassy air attaché, and staff officer to the civilian staff of the Secretary of Defense, Colonel Voorhees has published numerous articles in professional academic journals and is a graduate of Air Command and Staff 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.Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor