A633.6.4.RB_LeeDarrell - Circle of Leadership

In last week’s posting, I discussed the Four + Four Model (Obolensky, 2014) and how that applied to team leadership in complex environments. When we think about leadership, our minds probably automatically frame it from a top-down view. The Four + Four Model perfectly describes what an effective leader should do. Since for everything that exists there is an opposite, this week we are considering leadership in a different frame – bottom-up leadership. That means that the focus this week is on effective followership and how we can influence our organizations’ strategies and climate without being in leadership roles. I am looking at bottom-up leadership in two different ways. First, I am considering how I can be an effective follower. Second, I am considering how I can encourage subordinates to be effective followers.

At the beginning of the week, I asked a couple of the guys on my team to take a little survey that was presented in our readings for the week. The results graded the organization little lower than I was hoping to see but it was good to know how they feel about their ability to perform within the unit. The questions included topics such as the ability to work without oversight, flexibility in working hours, the ability to self-assign tasks, etc. What the results really showed me what that the members of my team feel that they could prioritize and complete objectives on their own but perhaps they feel like leadership has held them back in the past. I surely didn’t take any of that personally as I have only been in the office for a matter of weeks. However, I has asked them to consider the survey from the perspective of the Company as a whole and not just our center so it gave me an idea of what I will be dealing with for the next couple of years.

Followers can be categorized in levels of readiness. “This could be described as followership ‘maturity’ – the extent to which they are capable of taking the lead themselves and getting on with what needs to be done with minimum input needed from an ascribed leader” (Obolensky, 2014, p. 157). Obolensky explains that there are two factors that go into this – skill and will. Low skill/low will = needs attention. Low skill/high will = needs educating (training). High skill/low will = needs motivating. High skill/high will = performer. So we can look at this in terms of training and motivation in order to encourage followers to become effective performers within the organization. Based on the survey that I had my team conduct, it seems that they are motivated but feel that they are being held back by an overabundance of management. In fact, I have heard them speak often of feeling micromanaged. (If you are concerned that I am saying this about my leadership, don’t worry. I am not stirring the pot with this. I am finding my new Captain to be very approachable and receptive. I feel that I do have a voice here.)

In addition to skill/will, we also have to consider levels of followership. There are five levels and the goal is to have performers operating at level five (Obolensky, 2014). Level 1 has followers waiting around to be told what to do. Level 2 is a slight step up in which followers will begin to engage in the process by asking what they need to do. Level 3 is where followers begin to generate their own ideas but seek recommendations and approval before action. Level 4 has followers acting on their own and then seeking confirmation. The top level, Level 5, has followers acting completely on their own and just informing leadership in a routine way. The goal is to have performers working at Level 5.

So training and motivation and coaching/encouraging to autonomy can lead to performance and autonomy. The problem is that a vicious cycle can often occur. Sometimes, a follower may take a step back and ask for advice which demonstrates a lower level of skill to a leader. This causes the leader to become concerned. When the leader is concerned, he/she may take a more hands on approach. This in turn lowers the confidence of the follower. With lowered confidence, the follower believes that they must defer more to the leader so asks for advice thus restarting the cycle. I honestly have no idea if this has been happening in my organization (Bronx Recruiting Company). I am fairly certain that it was happening in my center before, though. To me, it seems that the easiest place to have a break in this cycle is right at the beginning with asking for advice. Let’s look at this from two different points of view. First, let’s consider it from a traditional top-down view. Why are we concerned when subordinates ask for advice? If they had all of the answers, what would be the point of leadership even existing? We can break this cycle by encouraging followers to come to us without fear of reprisal or repercussions. Now let’s look at this chain from the point of view of the follower. Where can we break the cycle here? I don’t think it is in the same place because we can’t affect the thoughts and actions of others. We can only control our own actions and thoughts. Therefore, why are we allowing our confidence to lower when leadership becomes involved? We have to view it as a learning experience and bear in mind that objectives are being met as a team.

I have said so many times that my organization is so different from others that it can be difficult to see how some of this applies. We have traditional leadership hierarchies with most of the power resting at the top. However, in recruiting, we work in small teams with minimum supervision so it is very easy to see the application of this here. As a Center Leader, I can encourage my own team (of seven) to levels of performance that they didn’t even know they could achieve. But more important, there are seven other centers in my Company. As a peer, all I can do is my best to set the example.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham: Gower.

A633.5.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Reflections on Chaos

I think that I am finally getting the hang of the theory of leadership in a complex adaptive organization! Notice that I said theory and not practice. It may take quite some time to learn how to apply everything. When we have been doing something for so long that it has become second nature, it takes quite a while to change it. We were asked to conduct an exercise for this blog that really would have given me a good opportunity to apply what I have learned in a practical manner but, alas, the resources just were not available but I can imagine what it would have been like.

For this exercise, imagine that you have a group of about 20 people. Obolesky (2014) gives this exercise as tool for leaders to open their minds as to how complex systems can work in chaos. For this to work, you really need a minimum of 8 people but the group that I could easily wrangle me in to helping would have been my work crew. Unfortunately, I never seem to have more than three people there at a time! (Just an indication of the complex environment in which I work these days!) Anyway, for the exercise, you take the group and place them in an open area with physical boundary. Something like a tennis or half basketball court would do well. The rules are very simple. Everybody chooses two other people at random from the group but gives no indication as to who they are. These two other people become their frame of reference. Again, there can be NO INDICATION as to who was chosen as a frame of reference. The goal is given for each person to slowly maneuver themselves to be equidistant (not necessarily in the middle of – just equidistant to each) between their frames of reference. Of course, everybody is moving so it is a very fluid and chaotic environment. In your estimation, how long would you think that this would take to complete? Nick Obolensky (2008) actually shows us in a little video. Check it out at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41QKeKQ2O3E

Wow! So for the group in the example – I counted 29 participants but it is a little grainy so it may have been a few more or less – it took longer to explain the rules than to actually complete the exercise! Before they began, they were asked how long they thought it would take and they chuckled because they thought that the task was so chaotic (which it is) that it would take a long time but it took less than a minute for the group to work together to sort themselves out!

There is such a valuable lesson to be learned from this. In complex environments – when chaos seems to be ruling – leaders don’t need to put their hand in everything. The fact is that there are literally millions of ways that this could have worked out. There are endless mathematical possibilities Imagine if one person attempted to control all of this. I can hear someone directing it now. “Okay, John, move three inches to the right. Now Susan, two inches forward. Wait, you in the back! Where did you come from? Argh! Now I have to start all over!” In reality, do you think that it is possible for one person to complete this task? I suppose that one eventually could but how long would it take?

::quick pause for an experiment::

I just had a great idea and I tried this with 10 coins. I couldn’t remember all of their frames of reference! So that experiment didn’t work for time but maybe further proved the ultimate point of this.

I am sure that you can see where this is going. In complex environments, it is not really possible for someone to manage the chaos. That doesn’t mean that everything can’t run efficiently. We just can’t control it. However, that doesn’t mean that there is no role for a leader. Someone has to be there to give the basic rules and outline the boundaries. Obolensky (2014) gives 8 guiding principles for situations like this to work.

1.      Clear individual objective

2.      A few simple rules

3.      Clear boundary

4.      Continuous feedback

5.      Skill/will of participants

6.      Discretion and freedom of action

7.      Underlying purpose

8.      Ambiguity and uncertainty

I have recently moved to another Army recruiting center. When I took over my last center, it was not necessarily failing but we were falling far behind on our mission (number of contracts written). Perhaps it was just luck but the center began to produce again after I took over. I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I was like a monkey banging on buttons that just happened to randomly make the machine work! The new center where I have now been placed has been failing for some time. The last center leader was fired and removed so I was reassigned there on emergency orders. I moved into that position one week after beginning this class so I am looking for the chaos and it is very evident. I am excited to apply specifically what I have learned from this exercise. It seems to all boil down to one old saying – when it comes to leadership in a complex environment, less is more. My role is to give basic objectives, a few simple rules, left and right limits (boundaries), then let me team work together to achieve what they need to without being micromanaged.

UPDATE:

Since I originally posted this, I am seeing some disturbing trends within my new Company (for those unfamiliar, that is my next higher echelon of organization). Yesterday, I spend four hours in a conference only to go back to my center and spend two hours on a conference call. Today, I was on another conference call for nearly two hours. Across the board, every center within Company has been failing to meet our numbers. I am concerned that these now overly-excessive meetings are a desperate attempt to control what perhaps cannot be controlled. It is removing the Center Leaders such as myself – those of us with the most experience – from the mix during the most demanding times of the day trying to direct our actions. We are about to have a change in leadership at the end of next week so there probably is little that can be done at this point but this is a case in point to the futility of trying to control every aspect of a complex situation.   

[Nick Obolensky]. (2008, April 12). Who needs leaders?. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41QKeKQ2O3E

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham: Gower.

A633.4.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Changing Dynamics of Leadership

Take a moment to think about this before reading ahead. Within your own organization, of all of the solutions that actually made a difference, what percentage of those came from the top? How about from the middle? Finally, what percentage of the actual solutions to problems came from the bottom (those actually doing the work)?

We began our reading this week with the above exercise. I realize that the Army is a very unique organization but I also realize that it is a changing organization. We may never reach a state of polyarchy and we will never be like any civilian corporation but I think we can still be classified as a complex adaptive organization. I just collaborated with my coworker here and asked him to give his take on the above question. Both he and I seem to be of the same mind agreeing that, in the Army, about 25% of solutions to problems come from the top echelons of leadership. This may seem a lot higher than the number that you got for your own organization but it makes sense because “the higher the number is, the more formal and traditional you may see leadership” (Obolensky, 2014, p. 35). The Army is deeply rooted in tradition and, as previously discussed, we are a little slow to change. This exercise was actually given to 2,500 executives from 50 different countries (yes, it was the executives and not just the workers answering) and the average fell between 15 and 30% which means “it is universally agreed that those at the top of the organizations only know a fraction of the solutions needed to overcome the problems faced by the organization that they lead” (p. 37).

I would imagine that a couple of hundred years ago, the vast majority of solutions in just about any organization came from the top echelons of leadership. Advancement came through either experience or nepotism. There was much more of a heavily flawed caste system at the time full of racism and misogyny and there was no “American Dream”. Fortunately, we have moved well beyond that and we have empowered and emboldened teams made of the most amazing diverse people from varying backgrounds that come together and make greatness happen! I am 100% confident that in the past growth and progression were stifled because of that caste system and the expectation that organizational leaders had the solutions when in reality the best solutions were present elsewhere in the organization but unable to ever be communicated. The issue that Obolensky (2014) points out now is this little game that we seem to play – a charade – where leaders pretend to know the solutions and those at the bottom pretend to not know the answers. It is like we are just hanging on to the ways of the past for some reason when everybody knows that we have to all put our heads together and work as a team. There is a real fear sometimes of three little words – “I don’t know”. Why are we so afraid to admit that? Obolensky points out three ways in which leaders can help end this charade. First, we can just admit that we don’t know. (How easy is that?). Second, we can use a challenge and support approach. This just means opening a dialogue about the situation at hand. Third, we can use dynamic question and answer sessions (as in a town hall style meeting) in which non-scripted questions are asked both of leaders and of the group.

As I have said multiple times, the Army is, indeed, changing. We are working to break this charade. Based on our hierarchical structure and deeply rooted traditions, we may still have quite a way to go but we are surely moving in that direction. But why? Why, with our hierarchy, would we change to a system where solutions are brought forth from the lowest levels? Taking a step back and looking at it from the outside, I can actually see how that would threaten the hierarchy itself because those at the lowest levels could see themselves as equals to leaders and that could post a danger in the battlespace. I’ll get to that more in a moment, though. For now, I want to focus in on three reasons why I believe we absolutely are ending this age-old game of pretending that our leaders have all of the answers. First, technology has changed everything. Modern leaders are embracing technology at an accelerating rate through the use of everything from smartphones to social media. Social media platforms display the authenticity and genuineness of those in leadership roles (Phillip Tredgold, 2014). Furthermore, “It also allows the leader to potentially increase their influence. Social channels provide a two way structure, one which gives a much better feel for what is going on in departments, as many people are happy to communicate and share things that they might not through more formal channels” (p. 9). Second, subordinates today are better educated. I am sure that we have all heard before that college is the new high school. Since a larger percentage of the labor force holds a college degree than in the past – in my case, a higher percentage of enlisted Soldiers – a higher number of the working class has the ability to analyze and think critically. I am not saying that you require a degree to be analytical but a degree does require a certain level of mental development which, in turn, leads to problem solving abilities. Third, the Army in particular is an all-volunteer force now which is made of a cross-section of society. All-volunteer equals motivated and a certain level of buy in. We are not here just because we have to be in order to make a paycheck. We are here because we want to be here and we want this to be the best organization it can be. We have a vested interest in speaking up and providing solutions to make the organization better.

So we know that the charade is breaking down even in the Army. Leaders are admitting that they don’t have all of the answers and are involving lower echelons in the solution process. We have to ask, though – how does this affect strategy? How do we maintain the chain of command when those at the bottom are equally contributing as those at the top? The solution is simple. I am sure that you have put together a puzzle before. Picture a large puzzle that, as it comes together, is forming a great picture. However, you realize at the end that you are missing a couple of pieces. What happens? The entire thing is ruined without those pieces. We are all a piece of the puzzle of the Army. We are all a member of the team and have our dedication functions. Being involved in the process doesn’t make us challenge those in positions of leadership and authority over us. Instead, it helps us respect their roles and directives. Our strategies continue to evolve to incorporate input from all levels to make us a better team. The traditional hierarchy will continue to exist and will actually be fortified. What I mean by that is that we will still follow our orders but now we will follow them knowing that they are given based on the input of all involved. It all comes down to that buy-in.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham: Gower.

Phillip Tredgold, G. (2014). Are you connected? leadership in the era of social media. Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 28(6), 9-11. doi:10.1108/DLO-05-2014-0032

A633.3.4.RB_LeeDarrell - Complexity Science

As we continue to study complexity science as it relates to organizational change, we have been able to focus in a little on the development and evolution of leadership structures, particularly as structure relates to strategy. Basically, the evolution of leadership strategy/approach in general (notice that I am not saying the leadership strategy/approach for a specific organization) has gone through three major shifts (Obolensky, 2014). First was a function silo approach. Visualize an old factory with actual silos spewing out nasty pollution into the air (we need to fix that, by the way, but this isn’t my environmental blog here so I’ll save that for another time). Each silo represents a division of the organization with the head of that division at the top. For example, you may have R&D, budgeting, marketing, HR, IT, etc. Each silo has a specific function but they don’t really interact with one other to reach a common goal. Organizations like that has, for the most part, either evolved or have ceased to exist. Those that did evolve moved into a cross-functional matrix. In these organizations (which is most likely how your organization operates), each division still exists independent of the others but the main difference is that they don’t operate independently but rather interdependently. There is transparency and cross talk. Within an organization like this, you would likely find high performance teams made of members of each division to ensure that everybody is working together. When I was reading about these, I started to visualize an old serial battery on a science project. Each battery was still separate but they were all connected to energize the same thing (usually me). If there was one break in the chain, the whole thing fell apart. As the evolution continues, we are not seeing more and more organizations move toward a complex adaptive system (CAS) in which the traditional leadership paradigms of hierarchy have evolved to a more fluid polyarchy-type approach. In an organization like this, though roles can still be clearly defined, there is much more of a team concept. I kind of think of a hockey team where everybody has a role to fill but anybody can score once they have control of the puck. Or, in the case of organizations, think of the business in my last blog, the Moring Star tomato company. That’s just a blob organization where everybody manages themselves.

If the organizations themselves have evolved, so, too, have the strategies that are used to drive them. Clearly a cross-functional strategy would fail in a CAS organization because the lines of communication and management structure have totally changed. There are two glaring reasons that strategy must change as the organization changes in a complex environment. First, “Complexity theory deals with systems which show complex structures in time or space, often hiding simple deterministic rules” (Lissack, 1997, p. 295). In a complex environment, there are still rules. Those rules just tend to be a little more fluid these days. As the variables are constantly in motion, so, too, are the effects of the causes. I previously discussed the buttefly effect but that is one example of how a tiny variable can completely change an outcome. If that cause and effect relationship has been identified, strategy must evolve to compensate or incorporate. Second, “complexity theory research has allowed for new insights into many phenomena and for the development of a new language. The use of complexity theory metaphors can change the way managers think about the problems they face” (p. 295). If the way that we think about (or see) issues within the organization evolves, so, too must our strategy. This also means that the way which we receive feedback changes because we will begin to interpret the same data differently. I could go on and on with the reasons that we have to ensure that our strategy evolves as the structure of the organization evolves but I think you get the picture.

For this blog, I was asked to discuss the changes in strategy for my own organization. Well, since I work for the U.S. Army, that may be a bad example as our strategy has really yet to fully evolve into a CAS. In fact, we may never get there. We don’t really have a valid reason to change and we need those clear lines of structure on the battlefield. As an alternative, we were asked to discuss how strategy has evolved with another organization with which we are familiar. Though it is still a new organization, one with which I am extremely familiar is my church here in NYC. I have been a part of it since before it was even officially a registered church and I have been a lay leader there so have been involved in the strategy department!

When I first moved to NYC, I lived in a neighborhood in Queens called Long Island City which is right on the East River directly across from the U.N. It was a mere one stop away from Grand Central on the 7 train so the population is primarily made up of mid-level white collar people trying to escape the city without being too far from the action. One of my old ministers from another church said that his currently church was sponsoring a mission team here and that it might be worth checking out. As it turned out, that team happened to be meeting in the public meeting space of my sister building on Sunday mornings so I went to check it out. They had only met a few times before I showed up so I think I was there on the 5^th or 6^th week on meetings. I believe that there were 8 of us. I don’t know how much I got roped in right away. It was just assumed that I was a part of this group and should have responsibilities. So much for getting to enjoy a year or two of rampant sinning! (Just kidding! Just kidding!) At that point, we really were too small to be called an organization but we did seem to grow rapidly into something that could be. After about a year, we had finally grown in size to about 40 members and we had an official staff. I think that we probably just developed as a CAS, though, because we all had designated roles and we all reported to one of three official leaders but there was a significant level of cross-functionality. As we continued to grow over the next year, I can see that we may have even taken a step back somewhat to more of a cross functional matrix with designated “lanes”. However, the strategy was evolving to allow more flexibility for our pastor which is like the CEO. The associate pastor that came on board is more like a COO in charge of operations. So where does this leave us now? It seems odd that we developed as a CAS and then our strategy evolved to a “lower” state of “organization existence” (those are my own quotations, by the way, and not a refence). But did it really? I mean when you only have 8 people, everybody has to do everything so maybe what I am actually seeing is original development in a cross functional state as that didn’t happen until after we had already adopted an official charter as a church registered with the association. The strategy seems to have actually streamlined, though, as the resources have become available. It seems to be a lot more organized as communication improves and experience is teaching us the dos and don’ts. Now that I live in Manhattan, getting to Long Island City is a bit more of a chore. It isn’t too bad but usually takes about 35 minutes so I am not as readily available for impromptu meetings so I have seen my role diminish slightly. That, too, brought on its own changes in strategy for the organization as my roles had to be passed on to another. So, where do I see this in 10 years? Interestingly, it the strategy held as it is right now, I can honestly say that we would be like most of the other churches here in the area. They grow to about 100 and then they stagnate. I didn’t think about that until now but that really may be to a rapid evolution from a missionary mindset to an operational one. Once we grow to a size to where things are streamlined, do we become comfortable and forget to grow? Now a church is obviously NOT an organization with a growth mindset but rather one of outreach. More membership does not equal more area impact. But should our strategy remain as it is, that is what will happen. We will stay in this cross-matrix state (which is fine) but I can see the roles morphing again and strategy evolving as well to encompass that. The bottom line – strategy, regardless of what it is, must change with the changes of the organization. Views change. Language changes. People change. What works today in any organization will probably only maintain and will not allow for (positive growth) change.

Lissack, M. (1997). "Strategy at the leading edge"—Mind your metaphors: Lessons from complexity science. Long Range Planning, 30(2), 294.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd

ed.). Farnham: Gower.

A633.3.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Complex Adaptive Systems

Have you ever heard of a company that had no managers? I don’t mean a company that doesn’t have many managers. What I mean is a company with no managers at all. I have never heard of anything like that before until this week and, strangely, it is a company with which I am already vaguely familiar because I have used their products before. There’s a good chance that you have as well. The Morning Star Company based in California is a fairly common household name as they make canned tomatoes sold in stores all over the country. And they have no managers. There are no bosses at all. An article in the Human Resource Management International Digest outlines how the company operates (Hamel, 2012). This is a pretty radical approach to operating a business but it seems to be working quite well. First, management in the traditional sense is very expensive. Traditionally, the more employees you have, the more managers you need. Additionally, you need managers for the managers and then, as the company grows, managers for those managers. Hamel (2012) notes that if each manager earns more than the employees below them, management alone can prove to be overbearingly costly. Not only is management costly but another issue is that “as decisions get bigger, the ranks of those able to challenge the decision maker get smaller. Hubris, myopia, and naïveté can lead to bad judgment at any level, but the danger is greatest when the decision maker's power is, for all purposes, uncontestable” (p. 50). By eliminating management, the power is also eliminated. One might think that would mean that everybody has the power, then, and would create even more problems but when all peers have equal power, bad decisions can be crushed as easily as they are created. Finally, “A related problem is that the most powerful managers are the ones furthest from frontline realities. All too often, decisions made on an Olympian peak prove to be unworkable on the ground” (p. 50).

As we continue to explore complex adaptive systems (CAS) and how that applies to organizations (Obolensky, 2014), I would say that this surely fits the bill of complex system. You see, a few hundred years ago, successful organizations worked with a functional silo system meaning that every department had their own manager and there was no cross-talk. Most organizations that operated in this way have ceased to exist. To survive, they had to evolve to cross functional matrices. “In these organizations, most people are working in a cross-functional way, where a product line or region has its own separate support functions. Reporting and processes are efficient and centralised functions are slimmed down” (p. 25). (By the way, that is not a misspelling. Our primary text for this class is from an English author.) What is meant by this is that as companies have evolved the exchange of information flows freely from department to department at all levels. As the evolution continues, though, organizations are moving to CAS organizations where information is completely openly shared and hierarchy is very informal. In fact, “formal hierarchy is rather flat, dynamic and more to do with meeting the needs and expectation of external stakeholders than actually ‘running’ the organization” (p. 27). In other words, in a CAS organization, the hierarchy is kind of like the royal family of England – a figurehead for the people but really quite powerless. (Speaking of which, did you know that the queen is on Canadian dollars?) So an organization with no managers is spot-on a CAS organization. In a way, it almost sounds like Communism. Everybody has equality and is working toward a common goal. So how does it work if Communism fails? My opinion is that it works because of Capitalism. The common goal is to turn a profit. Since everybody has equal power, everybody can keep everybody in check. Information has to flow freely and those that do not perform can be thinned out by their peers. Here’s another breath of fresh air on that idea, though. This doesn’t mean that the employees at Morning Star are empowered. Oh, no. Not at all. “That's because the notion of empowerment assumes that authority trickles down--that power gets bestowed from above, as and when the powerful see fit. In an organization built on the principles of self-management, individuals aren't given power by the higher-ups; they simply have it” (Hamel, 2012, p. 52).

In his appearance on the TED stage (yes, another TED Talk, but this one is a required reference and not just one that I added to my blog), Martin Reeves of The Strategy Institute discusses how strategy as we know it has to be reborn (Reeves, 2014). In his speech, he notes that we, as organizational leaders, spend massive amounts of time making a plan that, once executed, is nearly immediately obsolete. He points out that the gap between highly successful and massively failing organizations is growing and that it pretty much all stems down to strategy. Just as organizational structures must evolve or die (Obolensky, 2014), so, too, must the strategies of those organizations. Morning Star’s strategy has a high level of mobility and innovation which has led to success. I honestly have never heard of another organization that has absolutely no formal management structure (and am still having a hard time wrapping my head around Morning Star). As a Soldier (specifically a Recruiter Center Leader), I am left wondering if there is any way that I could apply some of these lessons to my own organization. Clearly there is a 0% chance that we will move to a non-hierarchical structure in my office. I HAVE to be the boss. The structure of the military will always be that way because there has to be a clear chain of command for the battlefield. (Granted, we aren’t really fighting too many battles in recruiting but we are still in the Army.) However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to cross-talk at all levels. But what I really love is what I was just discussing about Morning Star employees not actually being empowered because they already have the power. To what extent can I apply this concept? My team SHOULD have power. I should be little more than a director. That is my takeaway from this.

Hamel, G. (2012). First, let's fire all the managers. Human Resource Management International Digest, 20(4) doi:10.1108/hrmid.2012.04420daa.015

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd

ed.). Farnham: Gower.

Reeves, M. (2014, December 22). Martin Reeves: Your strategy needs a strategy. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/watch/ted-institute/ted-bcg/martin-reeves-your-strategy-needs-a-strategy