“Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with the results.” --George S. Patton

Management is a unique trade because there is no definite right or wrong way to do things. Every manager is unique and yet not every manager is necessarily a leader. Management has some very systematic traits. There are always blocks that need to be checked, yet there is still room left for intuition and basic human emotions. There are literally thousands of management philosophies that vary across company floors, organizations, and cultures. Within the realm of management certain systems are created whether we acknowledge them or not. To identify these systems and their functions I will evaluate a very unique institution: the United States Army. It is unique because it is one of the largest institutions in the World that doesn't have to make a profit. So if profit drives efficiency then how efficient is the Army? In order to answer this question we must evaluate all aspects of the Army's control systems, evaluating process, and quality management techniques.

The three traditional control measures as identified by authors Jones and George (2007) are output control, behavior control, and organizational control. In order to understand the control systems of the Army all of the latter mentioned controls must be broken down and evaluated. Of course the most intriguing of these is output control.

The authors of “Contemporary Management” state that, “the three main mechanisms that managers use to assess output or performance are financial measures, organizational goals, and operating budgets” (Jones&George, 2007, p.292). The Army would seem to break the traditional organizational mold because it has no effective way to measure output and efficiency in relationship with profit margins. The Army works off of a budget, and the only way to evaluate output control is by simply asking does it get the most out of its money?

All financial measures are measured directly with organizational goals, and operating budgets. In a traditional business format in which all three measures are directed at turning a profit, the Army evaluates itself by determining if it met organizational goals. Whereas Jones and George (2007) suggests output control is measured by three distinct evaluations that revolve around profit, the Army has no such mechanism because there is no profit to be made;therefore the Army basis its output not on profit but on organizational goals alone. Simply put, did each unit accomplish its mission and manage its budget correctly?

Budget management is tricky for the Army. Each unit or company within the Army is given an annual training outline of things it is to accomplish within that year. The company commanders are the individuals responsible for managing the budget for that given mission. After the schedule for the fiscal year is received by the commander (in which he/she has little or no input) then the commander requests the funds for his budget based off of the mission for that year. This is a very dysfunctional control measure. The mission is apt to change at any point and time, but the budget does not. The commander can request funds for the annual year, but the unit doesn't always (rarely) gets the amount requested. This is an example of a very “top-down” management structure. The training outline will be met. As a matter of fact it judges output on not if it accomplishes its mission, but how well it accomplishes its mission. For example, if the commander is given the task of qualifying its soldiers on a weapon range, the event will happen; however, it may not meet its goal for that range. For instance, the goal could be to qualify 90% of personnel on their personal M-16 rifle. The commander allocates targets, ranges, buys the ammunition, and has all of the resources available for everyone to get a chance to qualify. The unit commander must also calculate enough resources for some people to go multiple times because there is a certain standard each person must shoot to be deemed qualified. All of that being said, there may be people that go unqualified and the mission standards may not be met. The unit could go to the range and only successfully qualify 75% of its people. This happens regularly, and if the commander has time in the schedule and the resources he or she may schedule another range. If not, the soldiers will have to wait until the next regularly scheduled range event to try again.

The dysfunctional aspect of the downward moving control function is obvious. Everything is mandated from upper management which has no idea of how well the soldiers are currently trained. In the example from above, management assumes everyone is proficient on their individual weapon, even though only 75% of the people actually qualified. The fallacy is that upper level commanders don't understand how many had to shoot twice to qualify, and they never account for retraining the 25% that is left unqualified. It is very inefficient. Had there been time on the schedule for training drills prior to the range the amount of people qualified would have certainly went up;however, 75% seems like a suitable number and may even be deemed a success in military standards. The tragedy is by successfully completing an ever changing goal the 25% is always left out. The upper division commander seems to assume that no additional training is needed and on the next fiscal year may have the schedule identical to the one deemed successful –even though lower level leaders know that it essentially was not and that the same individuals go untrained year in and year out.

Output controls in the Army are judged on organizational goals and operating budgets, and has no faucet to judge financial measures. Each level of upper management is judged on how well their subordinate units met their training schedules and if the training goals were accomplished based on individual percentages of the completion of individual and unit tasks. It would be a lot more proficient system if lower management could send up training requests to work on weak areas. Lower management has a much better understanding of individual skills and training needs. The Army could formulate a system in which training is sent up from lower management and approved by upper management. There are blocks of training reserved for this type of requisition but there is little budget allocated for it and no training objectives identified. Most of all one-on-one training is based on behavioral control. Lower level managers use individual training and counseling time to build a family type environment and bring his or her soldiers closer together. Upper level management and commanders demand lower level managers build trust and unity in their team and squads so that they can adequately perform in the mandated training. There is no guideline to do this, only an evaluation system. It is up to each individual lower leader to devise an imaginative training events with existing resources. The soldiers experience in the Army has a lot to do with how well one's leader takes advantage of individual training time. Thus motivation is characterized by how well lower leadership deals with the demands of upper leadership and how well the leaders can devise fun and challenging training within the existing training schedule. The dysfunction of this atmosphere is that it creates an “us against them” type of culture. Lower leadership is in a constant struggle between mandated training and individual training and mentoring. Lower level leaders are constantly complaining of the lack of time they have to deal with their soldiers. The military is a very paper laden bureaucracy and just keeping up with mandated training and paperwork to keep the soldier's needs met fills most of the schedule. The rule of thumb as a lower level leader is that “the lower 10% of the Army fills 90% of the time.” This phenomenon occurs because soldiers who do not perform must be counseled and retrained as a behavioral control.

The main behavioral control is the evaluation system deployed by the Army. Every event for every soldier is evaluated and documented by his or her first line leader. These are called counseling forms and they are very time consuming. Counseling forms determine documentation for promotions and or demotions as well as grounds for discharge. In the above scenario with the soldiers going to the range, if I were a first line leader of a soldier that failed to qualify, I would have to give the soldier a counseling with a plan of action to correct this short-coming as well as express what I as a leader am going to do to help. Likewise for every soldier that met the standard and qualified I would have to write a counseling to congratulate the soldier. Even still there must be a plan of action to determine how the soldier can do better. If the soldier did something exemplary the leader then has to write and submit for an award for the soldier. The common theme is “paperwork.” The basis of this massive amount of documentation is so that upper level leaders can understand individual performances with a glance at ones counseling packet. This behavioral control is good in theory but has many shortcomings.

The main shortcoming is that it is very time consuming and within hectic training schedule when every moment could be a valuable training experience training is missed for counseling. Instead of spending an hour retraining the soldier that needs training, the leader finds himself or herself writing and not supervising. Secondly, it is very subjective in nature. First line leaders can manipulate counsellings to keep soldiers from getting promoted. This is the most abused part of the system. For an example I could counsel “Joe Snuffy” every time he was late for formation, yet not give a counseling to another soldier for the same infraction. Leaders who do this usually are disliked by subordinates but there is no system in place to catch such an infraction. One control measure the Army could use is to bring in independent evaluators. However, with the strains on personnel already I see no feasible way to implement such a system. First line leaders control the destiny of their soldiers' careers and in some aspects control sustainability of the soldier.

This system would be classified as “management by objectives” by the authors Jones and George (2007, p.299). But it is found within a system of bureaucratic control as well. The authors propose that bureaucratic control happens “when direct supervision is too expensive and management by objectives is inappropriate ...,” managers may use bureaucratic control which is “control by means of a comprehensive system of rules and standard operating procedures that shapes and regulates the behavior of divisions, functions, and individuals” (2007). Within the definitions given by the authors it would stand to reason the Army is an organization that uses two types of behavior management in one. The authors suggest that organizations use one or the other, but here within our system in the Army we use both. That would seem to be micro-management or over-management -- and it is. The red tape of management makes it almost impossible to have time to supervise your subordinates. A top-down management perspective with two types of behavioral controls is very inefficient. To find a more efficient model to evaluate organizational control measures (output,behavior,and organizational) the Army should take a more horizontal approach to management.

In a study by Goddard and Mannion (2004) the authors concluded that “ [they] highlight the importance of finding effective ways to integrate top-down approaches to performance assessment with horizontal networks. Unless this is achieved, performance measurement systems, although operating in the same sector, may be at cross-purposes and, in the extreme, may even induce serious unintended and dysfunctional consequences.”

The military, as illustrated, uses many factors to measure performance, but as the authors state that top-down approaches to performance assessment may have “cross-purposes.” The main performance measure for a company is “readiness.”To take a horizontal approach to performance evaluation would mean that feedback could flow back and forth between leadership and that units could share resources. Specialty units could train other units on tasks or there could be units designated as training units (which do exist to some extent).This would be a much more efficient tool for serving the public. There are several factors that could make the Army more horizontal in its philosophies. Units could train and evaluate one another, saving time for the units that are to be trained. This could be a circular type modular with a rotation of cycles. If you are the unit that is to be the most ready then all of the recourses from other units would flow to that unit and all of the other units would train one particular unit to be 100% ready instead of having 3 units 75% ready. In my mind this makes more sense then all units trying to have all the needed resources it needs to deploy, yet not all units deploy at one time. Performance would be judged by outside units and qualification scores by individual soldiers. Soldiers that did not meet the proper qualifications could be cycled back to the unit preparing to enter the training cycle. To make sure the units were at 100% readiness the Army would over-man each company leading into a training cycle to allow for attrition.

The Army operates under a fallacy. The main theme that is echoed time and time again by upper level commanders is 100% readiness (which readiness translates to the ability to deploy and accomplish a mission). The fact is that the systems are not in place to allow for any unit to be 100% ready is dysfunctional and deteriorating. Performance evaluations are micro-managed on most levels, and usually over-evaluated –meaning they are evaluated by an entire chain of leaders. It only takes one level of leadership to spot a shortcoming. The company shortcomings, which essentially are individual shortcomings, flow all the way to the top, then a decision is made and a plan of action has to trickle all the way back down to the bottom levels of management.

Army units do use benchmarks and knowledge management. To illustrate how this works we most propose a scenario. Usually a battalion is made up four companies that perform a certain function that is the same and a headquarters company which supports this function. For instance an infantry battalion would have for infantry companies and a headquarters company. Each company also has its own support via a headquarters platoon. Each company is measured by the performance against other companies. Usually it is the readiness or the percentage of the successfully trained soldiers in the assigned tasks that are evaluated. Battalion training meetings are established so that units can share how they accomplished training objectives. Ideas are shared and this is where officials use knowledge management. Benchmarks may be used for singular training events and can also be viewed in terms of discipline and physical fitness. Some units may be the benchmark for certain areas of focus in some things and not others. This is one of the best systems the Army uses to become more efficient. It still has some major shortcomings.

Leaders find themselves constantly “reinventing the wheel.” There is a constant turnover in upper division leadership. The institutional memory is constantly being depleted by moving parts in and out of the companies and battalions. Training meetings, which act as the Army's knowledge management, find leaders constantly refining the same faults over and over. For example a new leader that is new to the unit could be charged with running a training event, and would not have all the information from the previous years of training meetings. Training meetings become a constant and redundant revamping of generally the same avoidable mistakes. At times the whole upper echelons are moved within a certain time period and the wheel has to be invented yet again. The are stringent SOP's for training events, but sometimes they are inconclusive and leave out minor but important details about the organization of the event.

One of the ways the Army could become more efficient is to outsource the training officers job to private industries that could remain constant in company and battalion headquarters. The Army outsources maintenance and specialized training on equipment already, it would not be out of the question to outsource contractors to sustain training records and advise incoming leaders on how best to prepare. Benchmarks would be retained for long periods and shortcomings could be identified and resolved through the duration. The Army in essence could outsource institutional memory.

The backbone of the Army is the lower leadership. Lower leadership holds it all together. I have shown the constraints and demands of the lower leaders and the constant challenge they face to keep America's Army ready. They are tasked with a barrage of objectives coupled usually with unrealistic expectations from upper echelons. The Army uses a variety of controls. Output controls are hard to measure because there is no profit margin to evaluate. Outputs are judged by performance and evaluation with the responsibility usually resting on lower management. With the shift to a more horizontal approach the military could become more efficient. As of now the military focuses on budget constraints and spends the majority of its time focused on behavioral and organizational controls. The Army does use information sharing and benchmarking, but not to the same effectiveness as a company with better institutional memory. Overall the Army is inefficient and dysfunctional. The rules of management rarely apply in a business in which it doesn't have to make money and with employees that can't get fired, motivation is a constant challenge for lower level leaders. I posed the question whether the Army makes the most out of its money. The overwhelming answer is “no.” Tragically, since the rules of business do not apply to this organization there is no drive for change either.

Jones, G.R., George, J.M. (2007).Essentials of Contemporary Management. Boston:McGraw-Hill Solutions.

Maria Goddard,  Russell Mannion. (2004). THE ROLE OF HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL APPROACHES TO PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND IMPROVEMENT IN THE UK PUBLIC SECTOR. Public Performance & Management Review, 28(1), 75-95.  Retrieved January 19, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 777625781).