lessons learned
Wreaking Havoc
A Marine Corps major learns the importance of a clear command structure after a colonel, new to a project, reorganizes team management in an inefficient way.
As a young major in the Marine Corps, I was assigned to a large software system design and development project. I joined one of the many teams consisting of functional specialists, systems analysts, and software developers. Each integrated team was tasked with a specific portion of the system development and reported to a team leader who was solely responsible for delivery of the team’s program modules.
Although we were involved in a complicated technical task, the teams were very proud of the fact that, as a military organization, they adhered to basic military principles in the conduct of their work. These basic principles included economy of force, simplicity, objective, mass, and, most of all, unity of command, meaning a united effort under one responsible team commander.
Soon after I arrived, a new colonel was assigned to serve as the program manager. The colonel immediately directed a complete reorganization of the teams under a matrix management concept — the practice of managing individuals with more than one reporting line. Under the new concept, team members would have a dual reporting chain — one to the team leader and one to a skills manager responsible for training, team assignment, and skills standardization. Chaos ensued. One team member actually was overheard telling his team leader, “I don’t work for you; I work for my skills manager!” Team leaders and skills managers clashed frequently. Morale among the team members plummeted, while systems development progress slowed down.
One day around lunchtime, the colonel was walking through the design team area. One of the majors saw him and, in a loud voice from his cubicle, said to our team’s secretary, “Marge, I’m going to lunch now. If my boss calls, get his name.” We could hear snickers and quiet laughter spring up from most of the cubicles — eventually making their way to the colonel’s ears. You almost could see the blood rushing to the colonel’s face, and he beat a hasty retreat from the area. Soon after the colonel left the program, we quickly reverted back to the original organizational structure.
To this day, I consider unity of command one of the most important organizational principles to which a leader or manager should adhere.
MO
— James E. Vesely is a retired Marine Corps colonel and a Life Member of MOAA. He lives in Morristown, Tenn. For submission information, see page 6.
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76 MILITARY OFFICER FEBRUARY 2014
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