When I was a bright eyed, motivated (younger) officer in the Australian Army, one my many tasks when deployed overseas was to raise paperwork to formally request ‘battlefield material’ to be sent back home from whatever country we were in. ‘Battlefield material’ was items that included a range of mementos, keepsakes, and things you would typically see in a museum to add to the historical collections of my battalions and regiments back home.
This paperwork needed four signatures. The taskforce commander (two-star general deployed with us), Commander Joint Operations (three-star general back home), Vice Chief of the Defence Force (another three-star general back home) and finally the Chief of the Defence Force (four-star general). All for small mementos and keepsakes.
Let that sink in.
On another, seemingly unrelated note, the Australian Defence Force in which I was serving has recently been assessed by a formal review as ‘not being fit for purpose.’ This is the kindest way of saying the worst thing you can say about a military group, which is essentially failing its mission. This has been building over many years (including the time when I was busily writing those briefs to four of the most senior military officers to bring mementos and keepsakes back home).
Saying that a military force is ‘not fit for purpose’ isn’t an indictment on the soldiers, sailors, airmen, airwomen, junior and field officers whose ultimate measure of success is their tactical achievements on the battlefield. Many recent wars have been lost by well-resourced and technologically advanced armies that achieve all manners of tactical, low-level victories.
These wars are instead lost by those senior generals whose war-fighting days are long, long gone. Those generals whose recent wartime strategies have been universally condemned (they simply haven’t made any sense). The same generals that sign off on trivial administrative matters (like that above). And the same generals that routinely get national honours year in and year out (along with hefty pensions on retirement).
Let that sink in too.
Why the link between 'signatures' and 'failing' organizations?
When an organization needs someone to ‘sign off’ on trivial matters or any deviation from what is normal, it essentially creates an impenetrable barrier to genuine low-level autonomy or initiative. But some might counter by saying that as long as the person who is ‘signing off’ on all decisions themselves respects low-level autonomy and initiative, then they will inevitably ‘sign off’ on decisions that support low-level autonomy and initiative. But this never happens in the real world.
The main problem with ‘signature crazed’ organizations is that men and women who thrive when they are granted low-level autonomy and the freedom for initiative typically have no interest in ever becoming the ‘signer in chief’ whose pen strokes grant or crush the dreams of other bright eyed, motivated junior employees. They want to be in a team where low-level autonomy and freedom for initiative is ubiquitous and everywhere. They will be long gone before they ever enter the promotion rat race whose prize is to become the ‘signer in chief.’
And the people who are left to become the ‘signer in chief’ by default are simply not equipped to be competitive in any other role. They don’t have the mindset to make the decisions themselves, and tend to enjoy the power and privilege of being in control of who is allowed to do what.
And so the act of getting permission from the ‘signer in chief’ quickly devolves to the following torturous six step process for any bright-eyed motivated junior employee:
STEP 1 … convince your boss that your idea is a good idea.
STEP 2 … debate with your boss whether you or they should be allowed to present your good idea on your behalf.
STEP 3 … (pending outcome of STEP 2) try and convince the gatekeepers to the ‘signer in chief’ that your idea is good … noting that the ‘signer in chief’s’ signature is in high demand across the organization.
STEP 4 … (pending outcome of STEP 3) be asked to write a five-page brief or be given a 15-minute slot three Wednesdays from now to pitch your good idea.
STEP 5 … spend the first part of your brief educating the ‘signer in chief’ about the area or system that you are expert in (and they are not) so they can make a decision about something that they have at best 15 minutes’ worth of intimate knowledge about.
STEP 6 … live with whatever decision they come up with … potentially after they consult with faceless people who proffer their opinions about your idea.
Competence
It is not unusual for the most senior decision-makers to become the least competent people in an organization that follows the six-step process above. Leaders who surround themselves with a staff of advisers that is required to explain or recommend everything is a key symptom of this.
Perhaps the most important personal attribute that people working in ‘successful’ organizations must have is competence. This is so obvious that it should be a redundant thing to say. But it is not. People are not able to use their competence in day-to-day decision-making as they are constantly waiting for their last bright idea to be ‘signed off on.’ And of course the amount of effort they need to exert in advocating, paperwork, explaining, and pleading takes valuable time away from being able to deploy their competence. So those bright-eyed, motivated employees will quietly leave in search of other, better places to work.
Today’s militaries are classic ‘six step’ organizations rapidly devolving into gridlocked bureaucracies. Even battlefield orders developed by today’s junior leaders in the field need to be routinely reviewed and ‘approved’ by faceless lieutenant colonels, colonels and representatives through expensive mobile computer networks. These orders can be more than 50 pages long and take days (or weeks) to prepare … even for simple missions.
Compare that to Field Marshall Montgomery as he prepared for the D-Day operations in World War II. He simplified his plan to a single page. His last message on that page was:
… the key note of everything to be SIMPLICITY …
The ‘note of simplicity’ provided such a unifying goal that leaders at all levels were able to quickly use their own judgment as the situation unfolded in front of them to create ‘organically complex’ manoeuvres that to this day resulted in the largest and most successful amphibious operation of all time. There was no time to ask for permission from anyone.
This level of battlefield and tactical freedom is sadly missing in most modern-day military and commercial endeavours. Which is why modern militaries don’t make a habit of winning many wars, and some once mighty engineering companies are now corporate behemoths whose strategy is to try and bully small companies with better ideas out of the market.
What does 'organically complex' mean?
It refers to a system whose complexity arises from natural processes and interactions within that system. It can be seen as the opposite of a system that is ‘structurally or procedurally complex’ where the complexity of that system is based on control and rules for how each part in that system interacts with each other. This sort of system is infested by ‘signers in chief.’
Some people might say that a ‘structurally or procedurally complex’ system sounds a lot like what we see in a ‘bureaucratic organization.’ And in many cases it is, but the correlation is not a perfect one. For example, some organizations try to create ‘structurally or procedurally complex’ systems using contracts drafted by lawyers with thousands of clauses, triggers and penalties in a usually vain attempt to mitigate out as much future risk as possible (or at least work out who is to blame when something goes wrong).
Some people might say that an ‘organically complex’ system sounds a lot like what we see in an ‘adhocratic organization.’ An ‘adhocracy’ is seen as the antithesis of a ‘bureaucracy.’ An adhocracy is an organization where specialized teams are free to form and disband based on what needs to be achieved. And in some cases, an adhocratic organization can create an ‘organically complex’ system that can very quickly and flexibly adapt to lots of new challenges.
But an adhocracy without hierarchy often exists for a short time, as the ability to focus efforts towards the same outcome can be very difficult.
Enter: leadership.
Leaders need to know how to lead. They also need to know what leadership is not. And signing off on every trivial decision or idea is not leadership. Leaders who themselves are not particularly competent in the fields that their subordinates are, tend to hold an almost subconscious level of insecurity which sees those ‘signers in chief’ emerge. They need to feel good by being involved in the process.
Instead, leaders need to know what competence looks like and let it thrive. This means there is no seniority based on time spent in an organization. There is no seniority based on who holds the purse strings. It is all about competence. And that means an organization where it doesn’t matter what you look like, how much hair you have, what your skin colour is, or anything else (diversity tends to be a symptom of a competent organization, but demanding diversity will not guarantee it).
So leaders need to be so comfortable in their competence that they don’t feel threatened by other competent people making their own decisions. And sadly, some of the types of leaders we routinely celebrate in this day and age either feel permanently threatened or are otherwise unable to do anything else but create a culture run by ‘signers in chief.’
These leaders don’t allow ‘organically complex’ organizations to emerge and flourish. Organizations who fix problems at the lowest possible levels. Organizations that design products with ‘cool’ functions and features that no leader would have ever come up with by themselves. Organizations who reward and attract talent.
Or in other words, organizations who are successful.
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