Introduction

This has been a course about Leadership—inspiring people to accept the requirements for change and to understand that they must change to improve themselves and the organization.  This emphasis on Leadership is not misplaced considering the requirements for change facing the Intelligence Community today.  As John P. Kotter has said: “Producing change is about 80 percent leadership...and about 20 percent management....” 

That is because, Leadership is required to provide a vision to guide change and to inspire followers in a way that causes them to share that vision and develop a set of goals to achieve it. That is Leadership at the strategic level. 

Nevertheless, the bottom line for any military organization is still mission accomplishment. The bottom line for any intelligence organization is getting the job done—accomplishing the collection, completing the analysis and providing warning on time.  To do that requires planning, organizing, directing and controlling the efforts of the organization to accomplish its mission—i.e. management, at the operational level.

However, the people who are to carry out those management efforts and implement them, especially while also being required to change the way they do things, certainly must be inspired to trust, follow, and motivated to take up their work with enthusiasm and energy and be cared for as they do so—i.e., they need Leadership at the day-to-day tactical level as well.

Thus, be successful in implementing change while also successfully carrying out its mission, any organization needs both outstanding Leadership and capable management. As an organizational Leader—the Commander, Senior Executive or the Division Head, Branch Chief, etc.—of such an organization, you will be acknowledged and expected by both your seniors and followers to be “the Leader” of the organization.  Leadership—strategic and tactical—is your primary responsibility. For that reason, this course so far has focused on providing information and practical recommendations to help the intelligence professional develop the talent required for outstanding strategic and tactical Leadership.  But, you will also have ultimate management responsibility for successful mission accomplishment.  For that reason, this topic focuses on the organizational Leader’s role at the operational or management level.

Balancing Leadership and Management

John Kotter, who Business Week  has call the “#1 leadership guru”, has pointed out that:

….leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action….Both are necessary for success….

[But] Most U.S. corporations today [1990] are overmanaged and underled.

Thus, his career long advocacy for more and better Leadership in organizations.  Nevertheless, he also admitted that:

…strong leadership with weak management is no better and is sometimes actually worse than the reverse.

Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal agreed [1991]:

Leading and managing are distinct, but both are important. Organizations that are overmanaged and underled eventually lose any sense of spirit or purpose. Poorly managed organizations with strong charismatic leaders may soar temporarily only to crash shortly thereafter.

More recently [2004], Henry Mintzenberg has said:

We all know that managers who don’t lead are boring dispiriting.  Well leaders who don’t manage are distant, disconnected.

And he has called for “just enough leadership”.  Indeed, Kotter, while advocating more and better Leadership, never intended to displace management.  He said that:

The real challenge is to combine strong leadership and strong management and use each to balance the other.  

Textbook authors, Desmond Martin and Richard Shell, likewise, emphasize:

The key to successful management is obtaining the proper balance between the theory, principles and practices of management and human behavior [i.e., the focus of Leadership] in organizations.

Without both outstanding Leadership and capable management an organization will fail. That has been illustrated by the Intelligence Community’s pre-war intelligence failure related to Iraq’s bio-warfare programs.  The WMD Commission summarized that, while the failure was caused by poor intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination procedures such as;

….poor asset validation by human collection agencies [in both the CIA Directorate of Operations and the Defense Humint Agency]; a tendency of analysts to believe that which fit their theories; of inadequate communication between the Intelligence Community and the policymakers it serves…

The Requirement: Be a Leader-Manager

Peter Drucker “The Father of Modern Management” recognized that “...any executive...by being a ‘manager’ has the responsibility to take on leadership as well.”  Conversely, writing on Leadership, Joseph S. Nye, from his background in the intelligence and national security communities, says “…recently there has been a renewed emphasis on leaders as managers”.  

Formerly, in the Intelligence Community, the Civil Service General Schedule (GS) had a “management track”.  Today, in the new Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System (DCIPS) and National Intelligence Career Compensation Program, there are three occupational groups—“supervisor/manager”, “professional”, and “technician/administrative support”.  Those in the supervisor/manager occupational group will most often eventually rise to organizational leadership positions—Agency Director, Deputy, Chief of Staff, Division Director, Branch Chief, Section Head, etc.—yet those people are all formally designated “managers” or “executives”.  Of course, those in the professional or technician/administrative support groups can also rise to professional or technical group expert and staff positions, and have titles such as “senior analyst” or “technical advisor”.  But, in all these positions, Leadership is critical and expected.

Thus, as Kotter has pointed out

Smart companies... try to develop leader-managers. Once companies understand the fundamental difference between leadership and management, they can begin to groom their top people to provide both.

Indeed, the DCIPS “performance objectives” against which all employees are to be evaluated provide the incentive for the individual to seek grooming as a Leader-manager and measure the organization’s progress in grooming employees to be Leader-managers. They require that all employees demonstrate leadership qualities and, by the time they have risen to supervisor or management positions, require that supervisor/managers are to be evaluated as Leader-managers, based on their observed “Leadership” and “Managerial Proficiency”. The six “performance objectives” are:

          -Accountability for results

          -Communication

          -Critical Thinking

          -Engagement and Collaboration

          -Personal Leadership and Integrity

                   --(Managers and supervisors will substitute Leadership)

          -Technical expertise

                     --(Managers and supervisors will substitute Managerial Proficiency)

Certainly, all intelligence professionals are expected to be Leader-managers.  That is because, as Martin and Shell emphasize “…by definition, the art of leadership is an important part of effective management.”   Montgomery Van Wart points out that:

…all good managers must occasionally be leaders (in any of the narrower meanings), and all good leaders had better be good managers (even in the most prosaic sense) at least some of the time if they are not to be brought down by technical snafus or organizational messiness.  Indeed, one of the enormous challenges of great leadership is the seamless blending of the more operational-managerial dimensions with the visionary leadership functions.

Certainly, government executives are expected to be Leader-managers. That need for a government executive to possess a balance of leadership and management talent is recognized in the current “core qualifications” for the Senior Executive Service (SES) as set forth by the government Office of Personnel Management:

• Leading change
• Leading people
• Results driven
• Business acumen
• Building coalitions and communication.

Likewise, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has used the same five plus “Technical Competence” as “Executive Core Qualifications”.  Of note, however, is the “relative job importance” that the ODNI has placed on the qualifications.  In senior positions, according to the ODNI:

• Leads people = 96%
• Builds coalitions and communication = 93%
• Results driven = 92%
• Leads change = 89%
• Technical Competence = 79%
• Possesses business acumen = 74%

Clearly, senior-level intelligence professionals are expected to emphasize Leadership. But, any supervisor/manager, professional or technician/support person aspiring to a senior position in the Intelligence Community should be developing the talent to be a Leader-manager.

Colin Powell recognized the requirement for senior government executives to be Leader-managers when, in his January 2001 introductory remarks to the State Department staff he said “I am coming in as the leader and manager of this department.”

The emphasis on one person doing both Leadership and management was, traditionally, not as strong in the military. In the past, military line, staff officers and senior enlisted were expected to be Leaders. Management was a secondary function often left to members of the military specialist corps and civilians.  

In 1994 in the time of declining defense budgets but continuing peacetime support, logistic and acquisition requirements, Captain Kirk Freund, USMC, seeing the need for an officer to acquire the balance of Leadership and management called for by Kotter, argued that “Management is a Vital Part of Leadership”.  Reflecting on the Marine Corps’ traditional emphasis on Leadership, the general military expectation that officers will be Leaders, and the prevailing esprit generated by the, then recent, DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM, he says; “As anyone who has contact with the U.S. military knows: it is ok to be a poor manager, but it is unacceptable to be a poor motivator.” He emphasized, however,

Actually there is no choice. A successful military leader must be able both to manage and to motivate—to achieve results.... Motivation in combination with management leads to success.... Despite some present day conventional wisdom, then, there is no dichotomy between management and leadership; leadership consists of managing and motivating in equal measure. A commander who inspires and manages is a true leader....Management skills are not an adjunct to leadership but an integral and vital part of being a leader.

And, since that time, it seems that the views enunciated by Freund and others—calling for an officer to be both a Leader and a manager—have caught on in the military.  For example Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD 1-1) Leadership and Force Development of 18 February 2004 defines Leadership as “...the art and science of influencing and directing people to accomplish the assigned mission.”

 Note in that definition the words “art” and “influencing”, indicating Leadership. But also the words “science” and “directing” indicating management.

Indeed, to some junior maritime officers, that trend has gone too far. Some have complained that:

-“It is overwhelmingly apparent, however, that the current Navy culture emphasizes managerial ability over leadership.”
-“Management has supplanted leadership in the naval services to some degree...”
-“The peacetime mission has focused more attention on the management of tasks than on the training of future leaders.”
-“Excessive bureaucracy has stunted the development of creative and daring leaders, turning them into managers who focus on executing the ‘how’ of requirements instead of the “what”.

Despite those concerns, the Navy has recently increased sending both junior officers and Admirals to business schools.  And, certainly, any military person serving in the mixed military-civilian organizations of the Intelligence Community will want to be a capable manager as well an outstanding Leader.

So, the requirement for your career development and success is to be a Leader-manger.

-experts urge organizations to groom “leader-managers”.
-the government expects executives to be Leader-managers.
-and military officers are increasingly recognizing that requirement and being developed to be Leader-managers.

Thus, throughout your career in the Civil Service, the Intelligence Community, or the military, you will have the responsibility and face the requirement to perform both leadership and management functions simultaneously, while in the same job.

It is exactly for that reason that the book Management of Professionals: Insights for Maximizing Cooperation is chosen as a one of the texts for this course.  While the authors spend five chapters and 137 pages explaining the four classic functions of management and a new (at that time) management concept, they also spend six chapters and 170 pages on what this course considers Leadership.  While they write that “…by definition, leadership is an important part of effective management.”  A reading of that definition—i.e.,  “Management may be defined as the establishment and realization of goals through the cooperative effort of all concerned persons.—with its emphasis on “goals” and “persons” is so close to the definition of “Leadership” used in this course—i.e., …inspiring people to…achieve goals….—that, it is clearly a book intended for Leader-managers.

But, Can You Be a Leader-Manager?

But, can one person be both an outstanding Leader and a capable manager? That seems to be an open question.

More than 25 years ago, Abraham Zaleznick, a Professor of Social Psychology at the Harvard Business School, compared the “Manager Versus Leader Personality”.  He described in detail the differences between the two in terms of their “Attitudes Toward Goals”, “Conceptions of Work”, “Relations with Others”, and “Senses of Self “ and pointed out the strengths and weaknesses that each brings to an organization.

He concluded that

...managers and leaders are very different kinds of people.  They differ in motivation, in personal history and how they think and act.

...managers and leaders have different attitudes toward their goals, careers, relations with others, and themselves....
...leaders are of a psychologically different type than managers...

...leaders have much more in common with artists than they do with managers.

..the conditions favorable to the growth of one may be inimical to the other.

His bottom line was that .

What it takes to ensure a supply of people who will assume practical responsibility [mangers] may inhibit the development of great leaders.  On the other hand, the presence of great leaders may undermine the development of managers....

It is easy to dismiss the dilemma of training managers , though we may need new leaders, or leaders at the expense of managers, by saying that the need is for people who can be both.

In introducing a reprint of that article, the editor of the Harvard Business Review summarized Zaleznick’s views as:

The difference, between leaders and managers, he wrote, lies in the conception they hold deep in their psyche.  Managers embrace process, seek stability and control, and instinctively try to resolve problems quickly—sometimes before they fully understand a problem’s significance.  Leaders in contrast, tolerate chaos and lack of structure and are willing to delay closure in order to understand the issues more fully. In this way, Zaleznik argued, business leaders have much more in common with artists, scientists, and other creative thinkers than they do with managers.

Some 20 years later Zaleznick still felt the same way. In 1996, during an interview he responded that;

...great business leaders have more in common with artists scientists and other creative thinkers than they do with managers.

Howard Gardner in his book Leading Minds, “Demonstrates the strong ties between traditional creators (artists & scientists) and leaders in the realms of business, politics and the military.”  And, certainly, Leading minds is the role of any Leader in the Intelligence Community.

Recognizing those personality differences, John Kotter says that:

Of course, not everyone can be good at both leading and managing. Some people have the capacity to become excellent managers but not strong leaders. Others have great leadership potential but, for a variety of reasons, have great difficulty becoming strong managers....recent literature ...says that people cannot manage and lead.

Martin and Shell also say that they “…have observed some individuals that could adequately perform most of the management functions, but lacked leadership qualities.”  One of the reasons they give is that:

Managers in the professional environment are likely to have specialized training and are often preoccupied with the technical or scientific aspects of subordinate jobs.  Consequently they pay little attention to the development and application of leadership skills.  This situation is particularly characteristic of technical supervisors at lower management levels. 

Given their early specialized training and the critical importance of assuring that the subordinate jobs of their organization are completed with accuracy and timeliness, intelligence professionals—supervisor/managers, senior professional experts, administrative/technical staff officers—could easily fall into that situation.  Fortunately, if you are reading this, you have made a commitment to avoid that situation.     

Certainly, from the definitions of Leadership and management, Leaders and managers have a totally different focus to their efforts. Leaders must focus on the people of the organization, on the goals and future of the organization, and on inspiring people to willingly change to meet those goals for improvement. On the other hand, managers must focus on the processes and systems of the organization, on the current mission and daily activities of the organization, and on assuring that the people of the organization carry out the processes efficiently and effectively to accomplish the mission.

Thus, to do their jobs well, Leaders and managers certainly need to focus their attention on different aspects of the organization—i.e., people vs. tasks, processes and systems—different time-frames—i.e., the future vs. today—and on different activities—i.e., inspiring and thinking vs. overseeing and doing.  Therefore Leaders and managers must have and must emphasize different sets of personal traits and professional competencies. Leaders need to be people-oriented with strong interpersonal competencies and be far-sighted and creative in their thinking. Managers need to be task-oriented with strong technical/professional competencies and be up-to-date and organized in their thinking.

If you follow the guidance for the Myers-Briggs based Self-Assessment associated with this course, you will find that neither you nor anyone else has natural strengths in all of those areas.  A person of one personality and temperament type may have more strong personal characteristics supporting the traits and competencies that contribute to good Leadership, while another person may have more strong characteristics in the traits and competencies that contribute to good management. That latter condition is why those who are attempting to foster Leadership, such as James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner by their book The Leadership Challenge, provide “practices and commitments” that people can use “even if they are not predisposed to be leaders by their natural instincts or personality.”

Develop Yourself to be a Leader-Manager

So, how can one person hope to become both an outstanding Leader and a capable manager?  Can Leader-managers be developed by education and training?  That is the dilemma that faces U.S. business schools today.

America's long-established top-tier schools such as Harvard, Stanford and Wharton...were widely accused of churning out graduates who...lack any idea of how to manage people or communicate ideas. [The essential elements of Leadership.] These schools have responded...by trying much harder to admit students who already have ‘leadership’ and ‘people’ skills....Nowadays, a Harvard MBA student is likelier than ever to have had a previous career as, say, an actress, salesperson or lobbyist. [Recall Zaleznick's views above.]

In other words, some seem to be trying to find people who are “born” or who by on-the- job experience  have developed the creative and interpersonal qualities of leadership and educate them to managers. On the other hand,

...USCD’s [the University of California at San Diego] Rady School of Management...is one of the few business schools to be established at a big American university since the 1940s...The new school will be run by Robert Sullivan, formerly dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. The school’s approach aims to differ sharply from its rivals.... Perhaps Mr. Sullivan’s most radical idea, at least as far as American management education goes, is that he can mould the personalities of techies into those of leaders. Business leaders are made he thinks, not born.

So, academics recognize the dilemma involved in creating Leader-managers.  But, what about you who won’t likely have the opportunity to go to either type of business school? How can you become both a great Leader and an outstanding manager?  You'll have to do it on your own.

If you do a Self-Assessment you will discover those strong characteristics, the strengths and weaknesses of your personality type, that support both Leadership and management.  And, if you create for yourself a Personal Leadership Development Plan to guide your future education, training, mentoring and practice you can build both your leadership and management traits and competencies.  Those of you who discover that you naturally have more strengths in the characteristics that contribute to good Leadership—future-orientation, creative qualities and inter-personal skills—while you are perfecting and using those for Leadership, can focus your education, training and practice on developing and using strengths that contribute to good management—organizational qualities and logical and analytical skills. Likewise, those of you who discover that you naturally have those strong characteristics that contribute to making a good manager or analyst or technician—organizational, logical and analytical skills—while you are honing those management or professional competencies, can focus your education, training and practice on developing and using those traits and competencies that you will need to be a Leader—future orientation qualities and creative and interpersonal competencies. 

Using what you were born with, what you have learned by education, training and mentoring, and continuing to develop what you need, you can be a “self-made” outstanding Leader and capable manager. 

But, You Can’t Do it All

As you develop your leadership and managerial talents and acquire a reputation as a Leader-manager, you will soon find yourself assigned to senior-level and, then, executive level positions.  But, despite how outstanding a Leader and how capable a manager you have developed yourself to be, you must recognize that, being an outstanding organizational Leader and an fully-involved manager is a big job.  You can’t do it all!  And if you try, you’ll find that the activities of management will insure that you have little or no time and energy to devote to Leadership.

To explain “why leaders can't lead”, Warren Bennis cited the “First Law of Academic Pseudodynamics: Routine work drives out non-routine work and smothers all creative planning and fundamental change.”   

That is because the routine work of management is about process, and processes often break down for one reason or another. And, when they do, management becomes about crisis response and fire-fighting. Those responses usually require some kind of action that tends to absorb lots of immediate, concentrated time and energy on the part of all concerned. But, management processes are usually just the things that the Leader-manager has spent a career working with and they are rational, logical activities that are amenable to solution by analysis, replanning, and restructuring. And, once the solution is devised and implemented, the effort is over and it is possible to see some immediate measurable results of the efforts. Thus, management activities, while frequently urgent, time-consuming and exhausting, also require using the Leader-managers highly developed talent, are mentally stimulating while being conducted, and rewarding when concluded. Thus, Leader-managers are often drawn into them, usually enjoy working on them and feel rewarded when they are completed but, at the same time, neglect their leadership responsibilities. 

On the other hand, Leadership is about people and, once a problem arises, people tend to be difficult, irascible and resistant to change. When that happens, Leadership requires dealing with the people involved in a non-confrontational way, on an interpersonal level, yet in an often emotionally-charged atmosphere. Such a response usually requires picking the right time, maintaining self-control to present a calm and objective demeanor, and providing continued attention and follow-up, but rarely offers immediate tangible results. A preferred leadership approach requires knowing the people of the organization well enough to foresee problems before they arise, establishing goals or planning changes that will avoid those problems and choosing a solution that will motivate the person or people to accept and implement those changes. Both of those leadership approaches require lots of personal time for reflection, are carried out on an on-going basis, initially at least, in the face of a non-amenable audience and are slow to provide tangible results and require continued attention. Leadership is continuous, time-consuming, often stressful or frustrating and unlikely to provide immediate gratifying results. Thus, Leader-managers sometimes are tempted to avoid those leadership responsibilities, especially if there is management activity to engage them.

This is a natural tendency for Leader-managers to get involved in the urgent, interesting and rewarding management duties and put off responding to the continuous, unpleasant and rarely satisfying people problems or to neglect the efforts required to detect continually emerging people problems in the hope that they will go away.  But, the result is, that without creative planning and fundamental change or improvement, more management problems arise and, ultimately, management crises will consume all of the Leader-manager’s time. That should not be allowed to happen. As Van Wart advises; “Leaders must be careful not to let the daily operational aspects of business crowd out the other major leadership foci.”

Unfortunately, too many senior Leaders also fall into the trap of being to deeply engaged in operational management and, thereby, fail to adequately carry out their responsibilities as Leaders.  Having been promoted to their senior Leadership position because of their previous success as Leader-managers, they think they can “do it all”.  But at more senior levels the Leader’s leadership role and responsibilities increase but so too do the pressures to get involved in management activities that are important for organizational success.  Trying to do it all can bring a Leader’s downfall.

For examples from the U.S. Civil War of a Leader who tried to "Do it all" in contrast with another who emphasised Leadership but also managed, go here_____.

For views on the balancing Leadership and management from the business world, go here____.

Striking the Right Balance: The Role the Organizational Leader in the Management of the Organization

As an organizational Leader at any level, you will want to strike the right balance so that you do not suffer from management over-involvement and leadership passivity or, on the other hand, from management disconnect and leadership hyper-activity.  The decision must be a personal one, depending on the level of development of your own leadership talent and management abilities as well as the level of development of the leadership talent and management abilities of others in the organization on whom you can call for support.  It will also depend on the state of the organization itself and the demands being placed on the organization at any time.

Regardless, of those factors, you must also strike a balance between your involvement in both so that there is some leadership activity to share with other senior Leader-managers and some management activity to delegate to junior Leader-managers for the career development of both.  Finally, you must strike a balance between the two to preserve your body from fatigue and your mind from stress. Your leadership enthusiasm and optimism will suffer if you are in a bad mood or depressed and your management decisions will not be best when you are tired.

Thus, there is no single answer to what the balance between the organizational Leader’s primary commitment to the strategic and tactical leadership of the organization and the Leader’s involvement in operational management activities should be.  Nevertheless, a review of some leadership advice from Peter Drucker suggests that the priorities assigned by the ODNI for the Leadership and management “core qualifications” of an intelligence professional Leader suggest the right balance:

Leadership:

• Leads people = 96%
• Builds coalitions and communication = 93%

Management:

• Results driven = 92%

Of course, in certain circumstances and especially by a senior organizational Leader also:

• Leads change = 89%

The lower priority to the remaining two suggests that the organizational Leader can rely on other Leader-managers to provide them:

• Technical Competence = 79%
• Possesses business acumen = 74%

In short, the organizational Leader’s role in the management of the organization is to be “Results driven”.  To check this interpretation of Drucker’s advice, go here____

The Management Functions of the Organizational Leader

A review of Montgomery Van Wart’s analysis of OPM survey data indicates the management functions that government organizational Leaders actually carry out in their efforts to be “Results driven.” 

Mid-level organizational Leaders, characterized by Van Wart as “supervisors” working at the task level, focus on the assuring the regular mission performance of the organization by engaging in:

·         “monitoring and assessing work”

·         “problem solving’”

·         “managing innovation and creativity”

Similarly, senior organizational Leaders, characterized by Van Wart as “executives”  working at the “organizational level”,  focus on assuring the overall long-term results of the organization and engage in:

·         “scanning the environment”

·         “decisionmaking”

·         “managing organizational change”

While worded differently in Van Wart’s analysis, depending on the organizational level and scope of responsibility of the Leader, both mid-level and senior organizational Leaders carry out three common functions management functions:

·         Gathering information on performance and results.

·         Selecting the management changes to be introduced.

·         Paving the way for the introduction of those management changes.

Check this interpretation of Van Wart’s analysis of the OPM survey data here____. (soon)

Each step is important. As Bowman and Deal lament: “Organizations do not change when we want them to, yet they change rapidly when we wish they would not.” If that happens in an organization, it reflects a failure by the organizational Leader to carry out those functions at the operational management level of the organization.  

Gathering Information on Performance and Results

When a problem or failure occurs in the performance of the organization or when the mid-level organizational Leader becomes aware of a potential problem in the performance of the organization—by walking around, talking to people, observing, sensing the state of the organization—the first step must be information gathering.  Montgomery Van Wart says that:

Even when a leader has good hunches about where organizational problems lurk, these hunches will be very difficult to implement without more specific data about the nature of the problems.

Likewise, when the senior organizational Leader becomes aware of needed improvements in the results produced by the organization—by sensing shortcomings from analyzing data from various required reports, by thinking about future requirements and challenges, through liaison with customers, but hopefully not, from criticism from higher authority—the first step must also be information gathering.  

Thus, Van Wart emphasizes “leader assessments”.

Leaders need information to act effectively, so logically, leader assessment and evaluation is the first priority….no matter whether that leader is an agency head or a frontline supervisor.  Such assessments help leaders set their long term agendas, which ultimately dictate how they will balance their time and where they will focus special efforts. Leaders who either skip this step, if they are new to a situation, or allow this function to atrophy if they are ongoing in their position, doom themselves to being, at best, second rate.

It is easy to have high aspirations, but without “doing their homework” —that is to say doing a very thorough job of assessment—leaders will surely do a mediocre job at best. 

To undertake this assessment, the Leader needs to “Get on the Balcony”, as Ronald A. Heifetz and others point out, so that they can get the big picture. Sometimes, for the mid-level Leader, as Heifitz and Martin Linskiy say, that simply means “stepping back to get perspective while also remaining fiercely engaged.”  At other, times, it may necessitate a special meeting of some or all of the members of the organization.  For the more senior Leader this calls for a special meeting of the leadership team.  But, this is a management meeting concerning specific operational changes, rather than a strategic meeting concerning major organizational, policy or goal changes. Therefore, in addition to the regular organizational leadership team, it can include some of the more senior staff professional experts and technical/administrators in the organization.  The Leader should use a participating style to gather information rather than seeking consensus to develop a shared vision for a transformational change. This level of operational or management change to correct failures, avoid potential problems or bring improvement in results is what Heifetz and Laurie call “adaptive change”.  They emphasize that:

Mobilizing an organization to adapt its behaviors in order to thrive….is critical….Indeed getting people to do adaptive work is the mark of leadership.  Yet for most executives providing leadership and not just authoritative expertise is difficult.  Why?  We see two reasons.  First in order to make change happen, executives have to break a longstanding behavior pattern of their own; providing leadership in the form of solutions.  This tendency is quite natural because many executives reach their positions of authority by virtue of their competence in taking responsibility for and solving problems.  But, the focus of responsibility for problem solving when a company faces an adaptive change must shift to its people.

Thus, the purpose for this information gathering session is to get a wide range of views from the people who really know what caused the failure, where the problems lie, or where improvements are needed. As Bolman and Deal postulate, organizations can be viewed through four frames of reference—structural,  human resource, political or symbolic.   Often, based on their past experience, Leaders only see the organization through one or two of those frames and tend to Lead only in those frames. As Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan say:

To become management innovators, leaders must think explicitly about the orthodoxies—the habits, dogmas, and conceits that bind their own thinking. 

As Heifitz and Laurie say, “Leaders don’t need to know all of the answers.  They need to ask the right questions.”  By getting the team together, and using a participating leadership style, the Leader will be able to get information about the cause of the failure, possibility of problems or need for improvement from others who see the organization from a different frame of reference.  That will help the Leader understand where and what kind of adaptive changes are needed. Is the problem or need for improvement:

-Structural: involving goals, roles, linkages integration, etc?

--Such as poor organization, unclear goals mis-assignment of responsibilities?

-Human Resources: involving needs, skills, norms, motivation, etc?

--Such as wrong fit of people to organization, poorly trained, low morale, etc.?

-Political: power, conflict, coalitions, etc?

--Such as organizational fighting over resources, authority, etc?

-Symbolic: culture, ceremonies, myths, etc?

--Such as uneven favoritism, or prestige within the organization, the traditional way things are done?

Normally, just as Leaders might, the managers may only see the organization in one frame, the one that relates to their specific function. For example, if an organization is not performing well

-the Chief of Staff of a large organization or administrative assistant of an element of a smaller organization may diagnose the problem from a structural frame of reference, citing insufficient oversight and coordination of activities and recommending a reorganization.
-the personnel officer may diagnose the problem from a human resources frame and cite insufficient training, asking for more resources be devoted to the HR organization and more time be devoted to training.
-one or more element heads may diagnose the problem from a political frame, citing divided authority as causing the problem and ask for all the authority and resources for the function be assigned to them.
-the support staff may look at the problem from a symbolic frame and say that more motivational incentives such as recognition and rewards are needed to get people to use the a new approach rather than relaying on the old way of doing things.

-and, of course, the technical support staff and other experts may see the need for new or upgraded hardware, software or other equipment.

Thus, the Leader needs to listen and understand the responses of the participants and show appreciation for them.  Then, having gathered the information and views of subordinate managers, the critical point is that the Leader must think broadly and deeply to understand the real location and cause of the failure or potential problem or need for improvement before deciding on the solution. 

Thus, the next step for the Leader is analysis. Peter Senge advocates taking a disciplined approach.  His “first discipline” is the need for “systems thinking” to diagnose the real location and true cause of the failure or potential problem in organizational performance or the need for improvement to enhance results. This requires taking a wide angle approach of thinking about the organization as a system in which all of its functions must interact to create efficient and effective organizational performance and results—Intelligence Community organizations performing the intelligence cycle are a good example. In such an organization, a failure, problem or the need for the improvement in one part of the organizational process may actually manifest itself first in another part of the process. For example, if a consumer of intelligence is not satisfied with the timeliness or quality of a warning report or response to a data-base query, the failure or problem may not necessarily lie in the speed or competence of the analysts and, therefore, require action to change the analytical process and the number or training of analysts. Rather, the real cause and location of the problem could be in the completeness and timeliness of collection upon which the analysis process relies and which just manifests itself in the timeliness and quality of the analyst’s work.  Or it could simply be in the bureaucratic processes associated with review and dissemination. Or, it could be in the customer-to-organization requirements process. Thus, to solve the problem or bring the needed improvements in timeliness and quality of analysis, changes may be needed in collection processes, review and dissemination practices, or requirements processes rather than analytical practices.

As his “second discipline” Senge emphasizes that the identification of organizational problems or needed improvements and the diagnosis of their cause and location must be accomplished by the Leader based on a “personal mastery” developed by a commitment to career-long learning. That is because, as a “third discipline”, Senge says Leaders need to overcome the deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations or “mental models”—i.e., Bolman and Deal’s “frames” of reference or Hamel’s “orthodoxies”—that influence how they might identify and diagnose the problem or need for improvement and take action. Only after such a disciplined approach to identifying the problem or need for improvement and diagnosing where and what changes in operational practices or management processes must be made can the Leader move to the “fourth discipline” of  “building a shared vision” or, in this case, paving the way for the introduction of the adaptive changes by the affected managers and people of the organization.

Of course, an organization is not strictly a mechanical system. It is not always the structure, allocation of resources, organizational relationships, processes or equipment that determine how efficiently and effectively a system is performing and indicate in where a problem may exist or improvements can be made.   

Russell L. Ackoff is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an iconoclastic management authority associated with the University’s Wharton School of Business and the Ackoff Center for the Advancement of Systems Approaches.  He also advocates “systemic thinking” but of a broader kind; not only analyzing how a system works, but why it works as it does.    He holds that an organization is a complex “social system” which has properties that are caused by the social interactions between the groups and individual people who interface with each other and hold the system together and make it work. For example,( in the previous example) the real reason why the intelligence customer was not satisfied with the timeliness of a warning report or data query may lie in the interactions between the customer’s representative in stating the requirement and the agency representative reviewing, vetting, accepting that requirement for action, or the interaction between collection managers and the collection site/platform representatives in stating and prioritizing the requirement, or the interaction between the collectors and analysts concerning the likelihood or timing of the expected collection, etc., right through the other interpersonal interactions required to get the product to the consumer.  These interactions between people are often the cause of failure or potential performance problems or need for improvement in the results of the organization. The “Curveball” failure is a prime example of this type of failure.

Having done this analysis, the Leader will not only have identified the organizational location and people that really caused the failure or where the potential problem may arise to cause poor performance or where improvements to results are needed and, therefore, where adaptive changes must be made.  But, as Van Wart points out, the Leader will have begun to form some additional ideas about

…the strengths of their organization that they want to maintain, and just as important, they identify performance gaps that they want to improve and opportunities that may require some type of organizational retooling.  This is done within the constraints of the doable—those things that are allowed, possible, supportable, and within the capacity of the leader to execute.

While these adaptive changes must be doable, Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan also emphasize:

When it comes to reinventing management, you must set aggressive objectives.  You can’t tear up all the track at once and expose a company to an intolerable level of operational risk.  Yet you must be as purposeful and creative in thinking about management systems and processes as you are about R&D or new products.

Selecting the Management Changes to be Introduced

If the Leader and the organization are lucky, that exacting and thorough diagnostic process will allow the Leader to select as a remedy for the problem or the needed improvement a simple organizational, procedural, training or equipment change which the affected managers and people have helped identify and to which they will readily adapt and implement.  But, just as likely it will reveal, as the lesser non-systemic diagnoses normally conducted in organizations do not, defects in integration between various parts of the system.  For example, it may indicate poor integration between the organizational vision and goals and the goals established by managers for their elements of the organization, or between various parts of the intelligence collection-production-dissemination process resulting in a poor quality product in terms of timeliness or relevance, or in the interface between the organization and its customers slowing and hampering the response to customer requirements.  Indeed, these kinds of problems arise in poor performing organizations so often that specific management concepts have been developed to deal with each one—i.e., Management by Objective (MBO), Total Quality Management (TQM) and Reengineering respectively.

All of you have come in contact with one or more of these recent management concepts. The administration of President Carter introduced MBO, the administration of the first President Bush introduced TQM, the administration of President Clinton and, especially, Vice President Gore advocated the Reinvention and Reenginering of the government. Unfortunately, each of these management concepts was considered by their advocates to be an all-purpose “silver bullet” that would solve all organizational problems no matter what the cause and where in the organization the problem or the need for improvement existed.  Thus, they were introduced across the entire federal government and they were required to be implemented in all parts of an organization. But, because they were applied in such a shotgun fashion throughout governmental organizations, they often failed to be effective or, even, useful in most situations and many places.

As Eric Rolfe Greenberg, Director of Management Studies for the American Management Association, pointed out at the time:  

It is the flavor of the week, one management concept after another becomes the rage among management theorists and business book publishers, and then is replaced by the next. In the past decade or so, a bevy of themes—“management by objective”, “quality circles”, “pursuit of excellence”, “reengineering” have ridden the cycle.

Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn USN (Ret.) recently described his experience during that period.

In my 38 years of active service I encountered numerous fads, and none, repeat none, ever made my unit or me more combat ready or my office or command more efficient in the use of taxpayer–supplied resources.  Over the years we weathered MBO, TQM/TQL, Matrix Management, Zero Defects, ISO 9000 and now Lean Six Sigma.  Each time the fad-of-the-day required dedicated trainers, time devoted to being trained, a report structure that clogged the paperwork flow and more….Thus arose gun-decking, dissimulation, lip service and snickers….

….the gurus decided that they would work in a leadership environment….They didn’t and they don’t.

Thus, as Robert J. Samuelson said in explaining “Why I Am Not a Manager”:

…we discover that companies often fail at organized efforts of self-improvement. By one study 70% of reengineering campaigns founder. Another study estimated that two thirds of total quality management programs do likewise.

Nevertheless, as Eileen Shapiro has said:                 

...new ideas and techniques (or old ones repackaged) will continue to be launched and marketed with ever increasing sophistication. Many of them will conflict with the prevailing wisdom...if only so that their authors can differentiate themselves.... The motivation for this continuing and probably increasing onslaught of ideas and techniques is simple...: there’s money in them thar fads.

Thus, it never stops!  According to the Economist, today the consultant industry

…badly needs a “Big New Idea” that it can sell to clients….Previous consulting booms were built on ideas such as “total quality management” and re-engineering.  But, at the moment consultants have no successor to such money-spinners

That is why Professor Harvey M. Sapolsky, the Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,  when recently offering some “Advice for the SecDef” to included in that advice the call for:

No More Management Fads

…it is important that Secretary Gates call a moratorium on changing management systems. DOD does not need more of this kind of change, but less…. One new scheme is announced before the other is fully fielded. Civilian servants, contractors, and service personnel are constantly in organizational turmoil, attending training sessions, learning new buzzwords and acronyms, and being assessed on their adherence to newly mandated procedures and standards.

If they can successfully avoid fads, what should Leaders-managers do?  Eileen Shapiro suggests that when selecting a management approach:

Managers who have the courage and confidence....will continue to do as they always have: they will use their intelligence and intuition to work out their own approaches, adapting the theories of other people as they go along.

The need to take such a common sense approach and forego over-reliance on “new ideas and techniques (or old ones repackaged)” often advocated by consultants, is the reason OPM and the ODNI requirements for executives include “Business Acumen”.

In taking such a common sense approach, first of all, the Leader must understand that no management concept is a “silver bullet” that will solve all problems or is useful for every kind of improvement.  Each concept was originally developed for the purpose of solving a certain kind of problem or to bring one kind of improvement. Each, thus, focuses on improving certain activities undertaken by a specific organizational level or type of personnel in an organization.  And each uses different practices, procedures or techniques in an attempt to bring about the needed improvements. Thus, before selecting a management concept or one of the many new ideas, practices, procedures or techniques to introduce into the organization, Leaders should make sure that as a result of their analysis they have determined:

-What function, process or activity of the organization needs to be improved — i.e., staff planning, collection, analysis, production, dissemination, technical support, etc.?
-At what element, level or group of people in the organization is the new management concept aimed—i.e., whose performance is to be improved, managers, analysts, technicians, support staff?

 Having identified the function, process or activity needing improvement and the organizational level or personnel responsible for carrying out that function, process or improvement, the Leaders can then select the adaptive change best suited to the specific situation.  Hamel and Bryan say that when you are “reinventing management” in your organization you must be “purposeful and creative in thinking about management systems and processes”.

If the Leader does that and the adaptive change is matched to avoiding the potential problem or bringing about the needed improvement and to the right organizational level and people in the organization who need it, then it will be successful and remain in use.  If it is not so matched, it will fail and drop out of use. 

For example, each of the management concepts adopted and implemented widely across the U.S. Government—MBO, TQM and Reengineering—was originally conceived to solve a different organizational problem or to bring a certain kind of improvement. They were intended to be implemented only by the organizational level and the people whose efforts could bring that improvement. Each employed practices, procedures and techniques usually only appropriate for use by those people. Thus, although they were required by policy to be implemented government-wide, they only proved useful and remain in use today where those criteria were met. 

-MBO, in various forms, is still in use in the upper echelons of the Intelligence Community for setting annual organizational and individual goals and evaluating manager’s performance. And, it will likely be tried the Intelligence Community moves to rank in the position, not the person; pay for performance, not for longevity; and pay banding, not pay grades. While it may prove useful in the supervisor/manager occupational area, it will prove more difficult to implement for those in the professional occupational areas where annual objectives were harder to foresee and in the technical/administrative support occupational area where the individuals have less control over the objectives of their efforts.
-TQM is still in use in various government industrial and production organizations to assure efficiency and quality in the production process.  But has fallen out of use in many other areas where other factors beside process affect the quality of the individual's or group's efforts. Nevertheless, it could still be used in supporting organizations within the Intelligence Community wherever a standardized process is used such as travel authorizations, financial reimbursements, pay, etc. .  
-Reinventing continues to be effective in those parts of the government that  deal directly with the customer by giving staff-level personnel more problem-solving responsibility and decisionmaking authority. But, has not been implemented in many areas in which work requires hierarchical decisionmaking or oversight. It could be usefully employed by logistic support, information technology support and contracting and other such offices within the Intelligence Community.  

Nevertheless, new management concepts continue to be urged on the government.  One of the latest is “Six Sigma”.   Six Sigma is said to have been developed in the 1980s by Mike Harry and Bill Smith for use at Motorola. In the mid-1990s, Jack Welch at General Electric launched Six Sigma with great success.  Michael Dell is said to be a great fan.  Six Sigma is an effort to make continuous improvements in management processes by DMAIC—define, measure, analyze, improve, control.  In essence, the concept requires picking a goal for improvement and measuring how well the organization is doing against that goal.  The measurements, however, are not summarized in terms of how many times “on average” the goal is achieved.  Rather they are summarized in terms of the “variation” from the goal or how often the goal is achieved.  Then, management changes are continuously made until the organization achieves the goal, 99.99966% of the time, or with a variation of only Six Sigma.  A further variation is “Lean Six Sigma”, a methodology that combines tools from Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma quality improvement.

Recently, some have advocated that Six Sigma be employed to improve the management of the Global War on Terror.  Another group of authors associated with the Navy Human Performance Center has proposed the use of “Lean Six Sigma” be used for “improving the Commander’s brief”.  Six Sigma has already been introduced into use in the Defense Intelligence Agency.  If it is introduced into managing the coordinated activities of Defense Intelligence or adopted by your agency, how will you deal with that as an intelligence Leader?  What function, process or activity is it intended to improve?  At what element, level or group of people is it aimed?  Where should it be introduced in your organization, whose performance will it improve?  Those are the questions you will need to answer before buying into the next fad.  “Evidence Based Management” is another concept being proposed for use in the Intelligence Community.

Paving the Way for Management Change

Having selected what adaptive or management change is required to remedy a failure or avoid a potential problem in performance or to bring about an improvement in results, the Leader must pave the way for the introduction of that change.

Often the desired change fails to be implemented because Leaders

…tend to disregard engaging personally in projects and assume that change would take place without them, avoid direct communications with employees, and delegate their role to the project team and outside consultant.

As a first step, the organizational Leader needs to insure that the appropriate Leader-managers of the part(s) of the organization into which the new concept, approach or practice will be introduced are aligned in support of that change.  If those who will actually introduce the change have been consulted and involved in the information gathering and analysis efforts of the Leader and are developing Leader-managers themselves, they will understand the concept, practice or approach and support it.  Or, if it is professional or technical/administrative, expert help will be available to them.  However, if it is new or requires a particular expertise some consultant support and pre-training may be required.  But, it need not be to the organization-wide extent that occurred during the widespread introduction of the earlier management concepts which were thought to be “silver bullets”.

Once the organizational Leaders are aligned, the Leader can delegate to them the responsibility for the initial and constant day-to-day communications required to reiterate and explain the change to their organization(s) to set a “clear sense of direction throughout the organization”.   But, having done that, the Leader must also delegate to them the authority to make the management decisions on plans and daily actions required to implement the change.  Of course, the Leader retains the responsibility to insure that full organizational “alignment” occurs by continuing to hold team meetings in which the various members can coordinate the plans and actions to carry out their delegated authorities and to make it clear that they will be evaluated them on the basis of their alignment.  Ultimately, it is the Leader-managers’ integrity and consistency in word and deed in adhering to the implementation of the change on a daily basis is what really sets the direction of their organization.

The next step in to motivate the rest of the employees who will use the concept, practice or approach.  As Van Wart points out, in order to institute change, not only must “…new structures, mechanisms and incentives be put in place. [but] Workable elements from the old culture must be retained while less viable ones must be changed.”  That requires the Leader to understand the culture of the organization into which will be accepted willingly and not resisted or rejected. That requires an understanding of organizations and how they react to change and why.  

Paving the Way for Management Change: Understanding Organizational Culture

To a large degree, organizations are just like people, only more complex because they are made up of many people.  And as P. Christopher Early and Elaine Mosakowski say “Knowing what makes groups tick is as important as understanding people. That is because, like people, organizations are unique because they also have a personality—“culture”, as it is called when applied to organizations. Because organizations are made up of people, like people, organizations will resist change when it threatens their cherished way of doing things and doesn’t provide them any benefits they desire.  When a Leader proposes a new policy or a manager mandates a new process, how often have you heard the words: “That’s not the Navy way.” or, “That’s not how we do it around here.” or, “We’ve never done it that way before.”  Thus, as Nye points out understanding and “managing culture is one of the most important things that leaders do.”  If Leaders do not “…become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, the culture will manage them.”  

Psychiatrists and psychologists recognize that getting people to accept the need to change their behavior is linked to understanding the underlying personality traits that cause their problems as a person. Only after they understand a person’s personality and the factors that are causing them to act as they do, can they adopt the right approach to convince the person to change. The same goes for organizations.  Leaders seeking to introduce change or improvement must understand the culture of an organization before deciding how to introduce changes in the management processes of that organization.  Just as “emotional intelligence” is critical to Leading people, “cultural intelligence” is critical to Leading an organization to adapt and change.  

Cultural intelligence is related to emotional intelligence, but it picks up where emotional intelligence leaves off.  A person with high emotional intelligence grasps what makes us human and at the same time makes each of us different from one another.  A person with cultural intelligence can somehow tease out of a person’s or group’s behavior those features that would be true of all people and all groups, those peculiar to this person or this group, and those that are neither universal nor idiosyncratic.  The vast realm that lies between these two poles is culture.

Nye calls it “contextual intelligence” and says that Leaders not only need to understand the culture of the organization but also the “distribution of power resources in the organization and information flows.”

An organization’s culture is the unwritten and often unspoken guide to how things really work in the organization.  Nye says, “Culture is the recurrent pattern of behavior by which groups transmit knowledge and values.”   It is affected by institutional elements; such as how the organization is structured, office layout, how diligently and ethically people are really required to go about their work, how decisions are really made, and how the organization shares knowledge and information with outsiders.  This latter, how rigidly an organization interprets and enforces “need to know”, is a critical factor that helps define the differing cultures of several organizations in the Intelligence Community. An organization’s culture is reflected by political factors, such as who gets promoted and why; by social factors, such as how people interact among themselves in the work place and the informal networks that exist, and even how people in different positions dress.  

Just as people have been assessed to fall into 16 personality types, some experts have assessed organizations in much the same way. One example, is a Competing Values Model of organizations. That model categorizes four types of organizational cultures: clan culture, hierarchical culture, adhoc culture, and market culture. Similarly, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus describe three “social architectures” —i.e., cultures---personalistic, formalistic and collegial.

-The clan/personalistic culture is organized centrally based on the follower’s strong attachment to the boss who wields the power and makes the decisions. An organization led by a Charismatic Leader may take on the outward-oriented, self-confidant nature of its Leader and come to play a dominant role in the politics of the larger organization or the Community.  For an Intelligence Community example, look here____. 

-The hierarchical/formalistic culture is organized into a chain of command and power is distributed at various levels where decisions are based on rules and standard operating procedures.

-The adhoc/collegial culture is organized in a decentralized manner, power is shared and often decisions are made by consensus. For example, an organization of creative people may take on the nature of its majority and become originator of new strategies and ideas for improving the processes of the larger organization. 

-The market culture is customer driven.  This, of course, is the real purpose of the Intelligence Community, but difficult to establish.  Too often, it is perceived that the customers don’t know what they want, want everything, wait too long and want it now, or don’t understand what the Community can and cannot do in the time frames desired.  Nevertheless, the best organizations strive for a customer culture.  

Charles C. Handy, an influential thinker on organizational management has defined four cultures in terms of the Roman Gods:

-Zeus: God of Trust.  This is a club culture that runs on trust in which individuals are independent workers. Responsible personalities that drive organizational performance and success. This is similar to the “adhoc” or “collegial” cultures.

-Apollo: God of Traditional Bureaucracy.  This is a role-based culture that runs on rules and job descriptions.  Assigned tasks and supervision drive organizational performance and success. This culture is similar to the “hierarchical” or “formalistic” culture above.

-Athena: Goddess of Problem Solving Teams:  This is a task culture.  The challenges and skills of constantly changing teams drive the performance and success of those organizations.  This culture is relatively new and more cross-organizational both within organizations and the Intelligence Community.

-Dionysus: God of Individualism.  This is an existential culture.  The organization exists to support an individual.  This is the underlying purpose of many “clan” cultures.

In a less anecdotal and more evidentiary effort to describe organizational culture, a survey by Booz Allen Hamilton that found that companies fall into one of seven cultures.

-“resilient”, “just-in-time”, and “military” which are assessed as healthy cultures
-and “passive-aggressive”, “overmanaged”, “fits-and-starts”, and “outgrown” which are assessed as unhealthy cultures.

The survey found that 3 in 10 people in the USA work in an organization with a “passive-aggressive” culture.  In the government, that the ratio may be even higher.  According to the article, by definition, a passive-aggressive organization is a

congenial and conflict free organization in which nothing ever changes. It is an organization in which everyone is pleasant and agreeable, in which there is little debate and certainly no heated debate. Heads nod when someone with power says its time to introduce something new and everyone seems to agree. In such organizations, as Sy Sternberg, CEO of New York Life Insurance is quoted as saying, “you survive by smiling and not disagreeing, because you may be disagreeing with the wrong person.” Most, then, go back to work as they always have, procrastinate, hoping the proposed change will blow over.

Thus, as Gary Neilson of Booz Allen is quoted “Instituting change is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.”

Not only do entire organizations have a culture, but within any large organization,

…there are sparing subcultures as well…..Departments, divisions, professions, geographical regions—each has a constellation of manners, meetings, histories, and values that will confuse the interloper and cause him or her to stumble.  Unless, that is, he or she has a high CQ.

Furthermore, there are not only organizational cultures but a variety of sub-cultures within an organization in the form of informal groups.  Some examples are age-based (the old boys), gender-based (advocates or opponents of sexual harassment training) , race-based (advocates or opponents of equal opportunity), religious-based (advocates or opponents of prayer breakfasts), function-based (all analysts, etc.), associations (Foreign Service Association, AFSME), or those based on perceived status (all SIES).  These are informal and sometimes even not even acknowledged groups of people that are cross-organizational but have common views about issues.  Thus, representatives of these groups should be involved when and as appropriate in the participatory information gathering process mentioned earlier.  Martin and Shell highlight that:

Proper interaction with informal groups is an important aspect of management, and the understanding of group behavior can contribute directly to the effectiveness of the organization.  Conversely, the manager who does not understand or ignores group behavior will have difficulties. …Specifically, the manager needs to be able to identify and work with the informal leadership of the group….Most every group has some leadership function, and sometimes this is complicated by the fact that it is performed by more than one individual.

Paving the Way for Management Change: Changing Organizational Culture

When major changes are required in an organization, a new Leader is often brought in from the outside the organization. That new Leader, not having been brought up in the culture of that organization, therefore, does not value it as highly as an insider and is more likely to look at the existing culture objectively, identify its problems more accurately, and be more willing to change it.  The continual changing of Leaders in military, government and intelligence organizations is why attempts to change culture often occur and fail.

As Thomas J. Neff and James A Citran, point out that changing a culture is a long term effort:

….a mandate from above doesn’t ensure a mandate from below….The critical point in the early days is to be sensitive to the issue and make an effective cultural assessment thereby laying the groundwork for long-term change…to understand the organization’s culture.  Listen and observe it in action.  Get input and ask questions.  Make your first moves count….

In the early 1990s, Lou Gerstner was brought in from the outside and rejuvenated IBM from a failing computer manufacturer into the information systems technology consultant and integration company that it is today. Gerstner says of his efforts, “Culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game.” Changing the culture of an organization is not an easy thing to do.  As Gerstner says:

Changing the attitudes and beliefs of thousands of people is very, very hard to accomplish. You can't simply give a couple of speeches or write a new credo for the company and declare that a new culture has taken hold. You can't mandate it, can't engineer it. What you can do is create the conditions for transformation and provide incentives.

To change the culture of their organizations, Leaders must take steps which demonstrate their commitment to making the new culture take hold.  For example, Jack Welch wanted to convert GE to an e-business organization digitizing the main functions of running the conglomerate.

The greatest hurdle has not been technology, but culture.  Sales staff…had to be offered bonuses for helping customers use GE websites to order.  Managers had to watch carefully for reprobate employees using “parallel paths” (the telephone, for instance or a walk to the store) to order supplies or arrange travel.  Some offices closed their mail rooms for all but one day a week (and only that in the incorrigible legal department) to stop employees from using the regular post.  Others locked their printer rooms except on occasional days when bosses would station themselves at the door and demand from those who came through an explanation for their sad inability to shake old paper habits.

In a similar effort to change a culture of non-collaboration and to foster communication and collaboration between the operations and analysis sides of CIA, in December 2007, General Michael Hayden, also an outsider, took down the wall which formerly separated their portions of the CIA Operations Center. 

Those are examples of how, as Edgar H. Shein, says, in order to introduce change,  “Leaders work on the culture of an organization, creating it or changing it.”  But he adds, “Managers work within the culture of an organization.”   Thus, when, the Leader-manager, is fulfilling the role of Leader and introducing major transformational change, the Leader usually must begin to change the vision of the organization and create a new one.  But, when the Leader-manager is filling the role of manger and undertaking adaptive  change within one part or to one group of the larger organization, it is probably best to start to work within the culture of the organization.

Each type of culture will react differently to the Leader’s efforts to get it to adopt an operational or management change that impinges on its strongly held cultural values. Thus, a different leadership style will be required to get the organization to implement the adaptive change.  But, as Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin have pointed out, the problem is that:

Many leaders assume that because they have been successful before, they will repeat that success in their new organization, but these expectations rarely produce the anticipated result where a cultural change is involved—without a change in leadership style.

For example:

-A clan/personalistic culture will, most readily, support and adapt to management changes that give the boss more decisionmaking power and the clan more independence of operations. It will be harder to get them to adopt changes that impose more control from above, require collaborative efforts with external organizations and reduce the influence of the boss. The key to getting this type of organization to accept a proposed change is to “sell” the boss on the benefits, personally, and for the organization itself.
-A hierarchical/formalistic culture will, most readily, support and adapt to management changes that strengthen the control of the chain of command over the operations of the organization and can be codified in regulations or SOP to bring added stability. This culture will normally resist changes to procedures that call for flexibility, creativity and non-traditional approaches or call for decisionmaking on the part of the individual members involved in the process. The key to getting this type of organization to accept a proposed change is to “delegate” the development and implementation of the change so that it can be “staffed” via the chain of command to insure everyone’s equities are preserved.
-An adhoc/collegial organization will, most readily, support changes and adapt to changes that have an external focus and allow the people of the organization more individual opportunity and the organization more flexibility in responding to outside requirements. This culture will usually resist any process changes that impose strict procedural requirements on the work of the individual or the operations of the organization. The best way to get this type of organization to accept a proposed change is to “participate” with the people of the organization in developing the implementation of the proposed change.

As an example in the Intelligence Community: Both adhoc/collegial culture organizations and hierarchical/formalistic culture organizations would agree that intelligence analysis and production require a customer focus and an improved emphasis and process for ascertaining and responding to customer requirements. But the adhoc/collegial culture organization will favor a change in which each individual analyst or collector, or a representative of a group of them, has the flexibility to visit the customers, understand the customers’ requirements first-hand, provide some information on their own capability to respond to those requirements, and conduct continuous liaison while supporting the customer. The hierarchical/formalistic culture organization will favor the stability and control of a formal requirements system in which the customer submits requirements, the organization reviews and evaluates its ability to respond to those requirements, schedules a response, staffs that response up the chain of command, and informs the customer when and how the response will be made available.  On the other hand, the clan culture may resist increased customer focus, believing that only the intelligence organization can know what it is possible to collect with the assets available, in the time required, and at the appropriate security level for the customer. The passive aggressive culture may appear to support the Leader's efforts to introduce improved customer support but will not actively respond to adapting its work to implement the change. You probably all know organizations like these, indeed, you may work in one.

Clearly, a passive aggressive culture is hard to change.  Experts say it can take 5 years of concerted effort and must start with baby steps.  A good example is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  For an example that problem, go here____

As you think about how to carry out your leadership responsibilities to work on the culture of the organization, you might want to consider which factors Edgar H. Schein believes have the greatest impact on organizational culture.

-Primary

--Leader’s focus;
--Leader’s reactions to crisis;
--Leader’s modeling, teaching, coaching;
--hiring and firing criteria;
--awards;
--allocation of resources.

-Secondary

--formal statements;
--organizational structure;
--layout, physical architecture;
--systems and procedures;
--rites and rituals;
--stories, legends.

You will note that most of the measures that are normally tried to fix organizational problems are those which Schein categorizes as secondary factors and are measures that are normally associated with management. While such management measures are necessary to bring about change and improvement, those secondary measures are not likely to succeed without the implementation of primary measures, which are the responsibility of the Leader.

Paving the Way for Management Change in the Intelligence Community

As example of the importance of understanding organizational culture when introducing adaptive change, think of the efforts that have gone into improving coordination and creating a true Intelligence Community over the years. Organizations have been continually created by bringing other organizations together.  The first was probably NSA. Then DIA. More recently, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, now the National Geo-Spatial Agency (NGA), was created by bringing together people from CIA, DIA, and various military service organizations.  Clearly, several different cultures existed side-by-side and still persist in some areas.  The original CIA Counter-Terrorism Center included FBI and other organization representatives and, according to DCI George Tenet worked well despite the failings attributed to the Community after 9/11.  The Community Counter-Terrorism Center (CCTC), the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) and the Underground Facilities Center (UFC)  have gathered intelligence personnel from various organizations, each of which has had its own traditional culture, and trying to blend them into a single organization with a new culture emphasizing the synergy of their different capabilities.  No matter what policy manuals are written, rules, or regulations are imposed by the managers, and no matter what new management concepts are introduced, the new organization will not operate at its fullest potential until the Leaders work on the culture, destroying or changing the former differing cultures and building a new one unique to the new organizations yet part of a larger single Community culture of cooperation and collaboration.

Those requirements have been clearly stated by two successive Directors of National Intelligence.

John D. Negroponte

...this new approach to ‘national intelligence’ represents a far-reaching reform of previous intelligence [management] practices and arrangements. National intelligence must be collaborative, penetrating, objective, and far-sighted. It must recognize that its various organizational cultures developed as they did for good reasons while accepting the fact that all cultures either evolve or expire, and the time has come for our domestic and foreign intelligence cultures to grow stronger by growing together.

Mike McConnell recognized that::

The DNI also needs to transform the culture of the intelligence community, which is presently characterized by a professional but narrow focus on individual agency missions.  Each of the 16 organizations in the intelligence community has unique mandates and competencies.  They also have their own cultures and mythologies, but no agency can be effective on its own.  To capture the benefits of collaboration, a new culture must be created for the intelligence community, without destroying unique perspectives and capabilities.

The way to do so would be to follow the model provided by the Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the military in the late 1980s…..What Goldwater-Nichols did for the military, IRPTA [Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act] should provide the means to do for the U.S. intelligence community.

Probably the major management change being attempted throughout the Community is the effort, outlined in points 2 and 3 of the DNI’s original “100 day Plan” to improve collaborative work and the sharing of information through the introduction and adoption of information technology. Stop for a minute to consider how it is progressing in giving the Community the ability to deal with an increasing volume of information, making the Community more of a collaborative entity and providing a more timely and accurate flow of information to the consumers. What needs to be done to make it succeed?

Looking at it from an internal community perspective, Clinton C. Brooks the former NSA Corporate Knowledge Strategist, noted that

...technology and tools...are only enablers. They will not cause collaboration....The crucial factor is the existing culture of using those tools.
All this implies that leadership, rather than linkage, is the key to fostering collaboration, learning and leveraging our knowledge....Thus, the Community leadership must...transform a basically non-sharing culture....

This idea that the introduction of information technology into an organization requires a change in the culture of the organization if it is to succeed is not a new one. A decade ago, Professor Wanda Orlikowski of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a study on the introduction of Lotus Notes into organizations. She found that while the introduction of Notes was designed to help people work collaboratively, most people only used it for e-mail, and to get on-line news. She concluded that:

When an organization deploys a new technology with an intent to make substantial changes in business processes, people’s technological frames and the organization’s work practices will likely require substantial change.

While it is not a new idea, it is a lesson that has not yet been learned by many managers and Leaders. 

...when companies bring in new IT systems, few of them pay much attention to the effect on their organizational structure or culture. ‘There is still the belief that big enough software will solve all the problems.’ says Rebecca Henderson, a management professor at MIT.

In short, Professor Michael Schrange, in a speech to a symposium at the National Defense University in February 2000, gave the bottom line: "The most important aspect of technology introduction is cultural change."  Hopefully, organizational Leaders at all levels understand that as their organizations are required to adopt and use the various new collaborative tools that are being introduced into the Intelligence Community.  Nothing will change without Leadership.  

The Prospects for Management Change in the Intelligence Community

In a period when major change in organizational structure or multi-organizational relationships is being introduced into the Intelligence Community, Leaders should understand the prospects for success in terms of the effort and time that will be required to succeed.  In April 2009 shortly before he retired, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, long-time CIA professional, John Helgerson produced an internal review of the first four years of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence his report found that overall, “the culture of protecting ‘turf’ remains a problem, and there are few, if any, consequences for failure to collaborate.”

But changing the traditional cultures of organizations over which a Leader does not have direct control is bound to be a long-term process. After the 1988 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which mandated “jointness” as the organizational structure, decisionmaking process and operational concept for the Armed Forces, there was considerable skepticism about the prospects, based on the differing cultures of the Military Services.  In 1989, Carl Builder focused on the “personality” differences among the services.  In 1990, C. Kenneth Allard discussed the impact of the differing service cultures on the prospects for jointness.  Eventually, Congress was required to mandate additional requirements, such as joint education and joint tours, in order to hasten the process. And, certainly, today, when most flag and general officers have had a joint education and joint tours, considerable progress has been made toward establishing joint doctrine, training, and operations.  The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, when he was Chief of Naval Operations , told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that:

Our path is designed to create a change in Navy culture so that it values jointness and, therefore develops a group of Navy leaders who are strategically minded, capable of critical thinking, and skilled in naval and joint warfare. 

Yet,  significant cultural differences remain within the Services which impede collaboration.  And for good reasons. For example, George R. Mastrocanni, a Professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy but a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve cited significant cultural differences in the two organizations to which he belongs.  He pointed out that the occupations or warfighting functions performed in the Army and Air Force create differences in the operational decisionmaking styles, relations between officers and NCOs, level of technical proficiency required, and motivational factors for remaining in the service that define the cultures of the two services and influence top-level decisionmaking and the introduction of change.

Thus, in his “Advice to SecDef”, Professor Sapolskiy said:

Jointness is Counterproductive

First, the Office of the Secretary of Defense should stop preaching jointness. The services' inherent rivalry should be tapped, not suppressed. It is good that we have big, proud, and overlapping armed services. The overlap allows for comparisons, and the scale and pride provide the opportunity to follow a different path when one becomes apparent. Not much that goes wrong with our military can fairly be attributed to the parochialism of the armed services.

On the contrary, inter-service competition has been the source of much of our strength.

Recognizing both the strengths and weaknesses of jointness, when introducing the latest National Defense Strategy, Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates wrote that:

We currently strive for a balance between…retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. Armed Forces successful by inspiring and motivating the people within them, and shedding those cultural elements that are barriers to doing what needs to be done.

Thus, after twenty years, efforts to create "jointness" in the Armed Forces have gone a long way but have not eliminated cultural differences which, for good or ill, shape organizational Leadership, management and willingness to sacrifice organizational prerogatives, standards and prestige in order to collaborate.  And, creating a joint culture for the Intelligence Community will be even more difficult than it has been in  the military.  First of all, the various military organizations have a majority of people with a common personality—mostly of ES or N TJs—a common function—combat, although carried out in different ways—and a common goal—winning—whereas in the Intelligence Community, functions and goals differ.  For example:

Richard Posner, one of America’s great public intellectuals, points out that police and intelligence work require very different skills. ‘Criminal investigation is case-oriented, backward-looking, information-hugging and fastidious (for fear of wrecking a prosecution). Intelligence, in contrast, is forward-looking, threat rather than case-oriented, and free-wheeling.  The FBI and CIA have a long history of mutual rivalry and suspicion.

Furthermore, intelligence organizations and the Community itself have a mix of people with a variety of personalities and functions.  For example, an analytical organization usually has a majority of INTJ while a collection organization may have a majority of ESTJ.  Similarly, in a paper for the Army War College, Colonel Ripley L. Rife made the point that “Defense is from Mars, State is from Venus” and described how the differences in personality types of the people in those organizations can lead to different approaches to national security and can create tensions when cooperative efforts are required as they were in his case study of peacekeeping in Bosnia.  

Those examples do not mean that a collaborative Intelligence Community cannot be created,  It just means that it will be harder for top-level Leaders to foster and will take longer than most outsiders expect and hope for.  The new DNI “Vision 2015” calls for “A Globally Networked and Integrated Intelligence Enterprise.”  Go to ODNI "Reports and Publications" and scroll down._____ . 

Conclusions

The Intelligence Community requires Leader-managers.  The organizational Leader, the senior Leader-manager, must focus on Leadership, but still has a role to play in management.  In order to have the time and energy to be a Leader and to fulfill the Leader’s role in management, the organization Leader needs to share Leadership with other senior Leader-managers and delegate as much management as possible to other Leader-managers, both senior and junior.

The Leader’s role in management involves Leading and guiding the introduction of adaptive operational management change to the organization.  To do so the organizational Leader must:

·         Be continually gathering and analyzing information on the performance and results of the organization.

·         Be prepared to select the appropriate management change that needs to be made to the operations or management of the appropriate part of the organization.

·         Understand organizational culture in order to pave the way for the adoption and implementation of that change into the organization.

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