
The Command-And-Control Mindset Is Killing Companies - kiyanwang
http://corporate-rebels.com/mindset/
======
leroy_masochist
I don't think the authors understand the term "command and control" as it is
traditionally used. I'd infer from this article that they believe it means,
"provide overly detailed instructions, then micromanage". In fact it's a
military term of art describing how to manage large teams in a chaotic
environment in which leaders never have all the information they'd like (e.g.,
combat).

The "command" part is leaders telling the people who work for them what end
state they need them to achieve -- not only at the outset of the mission, but
periodically throughout operations as the situation changes.

The "control" part is subordinate units/leaders providing real-time feedback.
This might be something like, "we are carrying out the mission as planned" or
it might be, "hey you told me to stay on the north side of the river but I
need to cross it to accomplish the mission"; importantly, deviation from
coordinating instructions in accomplishing the mission is a key feature of the
mission orders-based warfighting doctrine currently in place in most major
militaries.

In the words of US doctrine (which uses the common abbreviation for command
and control): > C2 is not a one-way, top-down process that imposes control on
subordinates. C2 is multidirectional, with feedback influencing commanders
from below, from above, and laterally.[0]

0:
[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/f...](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/6-0/chap1.htm)

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shouldbworking
This sounds great and all, but I've seen corporate rebels and how often they
get fired. The most dangerous thing you can do at most companies is to
disagree with your boss and be right. I was a rebel myself until I realized
the risks.

The safe path to promotion is sucking up to the level of management right
above your manager. Always show up early, look nice and busy, and make sure
you're always presenting at meetings.

The true rebels will be seen contracting or running their own businesses. Or
defeated and working in the dark corners of the corporate world just waiting
for the day they can escape, real or imagined.

~~~
iamacynic
oftentimes in companies, a consultant will be brought in to create controlled
rebellion - a consultant is basically a mercenary who will operate at the
direction of one of the bosses inside the company, and the results of the
consulting or research/development efforts can be discussed in terms of
political strategy as well as actual results.

of course, the trade-off for being a consultant is that you're very well
compensated but can be fired for any reason, or no reason at all, without any
of the legal protections afforded an employee. this is a business model for
management consulting firms but i've seen plenty of smaller outfits or
individuals do this as well.

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dasil003
Being a startup guy I come from the opposite side: one of the biggest
challenges I've faced in growing startups is alignment. When you're 5 people
in a room you can just kind of shout out what you're doing and everything is
cool. When you get to 50 this leads to a lot of redundant effort and toe-
stepping. If the culture is not evolved by 500 there's very little strategic
direction at all.

I agree about the engagement part, but given that I've always worked in places
where people were highly engaged, the next challenge is how to direct that
engagement towards a common vision and purpose with efficient execution.

~~~
fiatjaf
Why do you have to go past the 50? Or even past the 5 people in the room?

Isn't it just better to keep companies small? Maybe have/work on multiple
companies, have companies interact better with other ones so they can
accomplish more, but keep them smaller.

~~~
jasode
_> Maybe have/work on multiple companies, have companies interact better with
other ones so they can accomplish more,_

Ronald Coase[1] explains why an integrated large company can be more
productive and efficient than interacting individuals (or interacting small
companies). Basically, internal transactions (departments) cost less than
external transactions (contracts).

E.g. there is no way for Apple to sell an iPhone for $500 or Amazon AWS to
offer EC2 compute for 1 penny per hour if those 100,000+ employees were split
up into thousands of smaller 5-person companies.

It seems reasonable that many entrepreneurs have ideas that require more than
5 people to execute.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm)

~~~
bediger4000
_Basically, internal transactions (departments) cost less than external
transactions (contracts)._

It occurs to me that if we believe this, the USA as a country could make our
entire economy more productive by making contracts less expensive. 5 seconds
thought leads me to believe that "less expensive" might have a number of
things involved, from simpler legal language that doesn't require a lawyer to
understand, to a legal system that isn't set up to benefit lawyers, to less
intellectual property restrictions, to a less adversarial legal system.
Clearly much of this is impossible to implement.

~~~
daveguy
It's not the cost of the contracts themselves that are so expensive it's the
overhead of profit taking by the recipients of each contract. When you hire a
contractor you avoid taking on capital expense and internal complexity
overhead, but you are generally going to pay 15% or more above what it would
cost you to do it in house. You accept this tradeoff with the understanding
that people you contract with have to make some profit too. When you are small
the complexity overhead can easily draw you off course. Month to month and on
demand contracts can be paused rather easily to adjust to cash flows.

It's not the cost of drawing up the contract that adds a significant part of
the cost. The contract work itself that adds overhead.

~~~
fiatjaf
> You accept this tradeoff with the understanding that people you contract
> with have to make some profit too.

Of course not. You accept the tradeoff because it is in your interest to
abstract away risks. Part of the costs involved in this risk taking comes from
how the contracts are set up.

For example, your employee doesn't have an actual contractual obligation to
fulfill such and such goals every month, while an external contracted firm may
have.

~~~
daveguy
Ok. It is still not the _contract_ that is the major cost.

I didn't say the tradeoff is that other people make profit. The tradeoff is
the overhead cost. Sure, that can be another tradeoff -- obliged fulfillment.
Either way you're _paying the contractee_ a little more for that.

It's not the contract itself (the legal expense) that is the major cost in a
contract. Yes it is some overhead, but is it really a significant part
compared to the excess you are paying to have it contracted vs in house?

The point is. It's still going to cost you more, even if the legal cost is
zero.

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11thEarlOfMar
Struggling with this one a bit.

"The outcome of Gallup’s study clearly shows the strong correlation between
employee engagement and business performance. "

Good, the author says it's a correlation.

But the supporting graphic is titled:

"Employee engagement affects key business outcomes"

Which implies causality.

I can easily image a company that runs through early success, growth and
profitability and the sense of prestige that would bring to the employees.
Absenteeism, accidents, defects could be low because employees are engaged:
They are winning in the market, everyone's getting bonuses, their
acquaintances say, 'oh, wow!' when they mention where they are working.

Then, turn that company down, with the same employees, and you'd have the
opposite effect. A scandal such as a LendingClub, Uber, Theranos, that changes
the fortune suddenly, over night, with the same employee base, and I'd not be
surprised if absenteeism, accidents and defects surged.

In that scenario, it's business performance affecting employee engagement.

~~~
candiodari
The bottom of the article, and About - Team tells you all you need to know.

"If you’re interested to learn more about how to reach The Promised Land,
don’t hesitate to contact us for an inspiring talk, rebellious workshop, or
practical support during your organization’s transformation."

These are management consultants. Their statistics are about as good as those
from psychologists, except they are usually directly paid for getting
particular outcomes with their statistics.

In this case, their case is that there is a major problem in every
organisation ! And they can help ! For $xxxxx they'll "solve this problem"
(with a one-time talk about it, in case you were wondering), and for $xxxxxx
they'll give a workshop, which will surely allow any manager to prove to his
director how engaged he is, while (hardly worth mentioning, really) also
allowing him to go home earlier for a whole week and probably get a free,
really fancy, dinner or two.

Keep this in mind when judging the value of what they're saying. Of course, I
do think they have a point, but they're part of the problem, not the solution.

There was a survey I read which asked the question "would you prevent your
employer from gaining a million dollar in profit if you personally got $500
out of it ?". Apparently 86% would, and a further 10% was undecided.

~~~
TuringNYC
I good example of Management Consulting efficacy is the observation on how
some well-respected consultancies have been failing businesses. DiamondCluster
and A.T. Kearney would be at the top of the list, though dated examples from
my consulting days. If they offer such good strategy, why is their company
doing so poorly?

I once asked some outright, they explained that they are so busy helping
clients they don't have any time to help themselves.

~~~
douche
Perhaps, to paraphrase the old chestnut, "Those who can, do. Those who can't,
consult."

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jt2190
I'm curious if the European context of corporate "command and control" differs
from the North American one. (edit: The authors are European. edit 2: I've
heard anecdotes that European labor laws make management more "strict" with
workers.) I also wonder if the profession and industry make a huge difference.

In my limited experience in North America as a software developer, there has
been little "command and control", and far more "chaos", i.e. the businesses
didn't seem to have any kind of control over their software development, and
would tolerate a surprisingly low amount of predictability. This was almost
always because non-technical types were in charge. (edit: Non-technical types
often view software management as intractable, and tend to utilize vague
approaches like "we'll ship something on this date".)

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baursak
Lack of "employee engagement" is not a new insight by far. It's just that
implications of what it takes to address the root cause of it go down quite a
deep rabbit hole.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation)

------
alphonsegaston
Companies like Toyota have long understood that a more democratic workplace
leads to better outcomes overall. But the reality is, barring a major cultural
change or wide-scale labor organization, this kind of management system will
never take hold in America.

We're a fundamentally authoritarian society who organizes all our systems like
their mini-fiefdoms. I've never understood why a society that prides itself so
much on its tradition of democracy would build within itself an economy of
autocratic rulers, but I guess these kind of contradictions are as much a part
of our culture as anything else.

------
jlarocco
I don't know if I agree that employee engagement is a great thing to optimize.
I feel like engagement is a side effect of wanting to get work done.

If I focus and engage and double my productivity, I don't get to spend half as
much time at work, instead I get twice as much work. If I double my
productivity and double my amount of work, I'm still not going to double my
salary or double my PTO or anything like that.

Not to mention that most corporations have no problem whatsoever laying people
off when it'll save them enough money. "Sorry you dedicated 80 hours a week
and weekends to this project, but the economy's bad so we're canceling it and
laying off your division. Oh, and BTW if you try to work on something similar
after we lay you off, we'll sue you. Bye."

I think many people have realized at this point that corporations have very
little respect for their employees and that spending significant mental energy
being super engaged and efficient has mostly negative consequences (at most
companies).

I bet a company could improve productivity quite a bit if they let employees
take the rest of the week off once they finished the week's work. But that
would require management to have an understanding of the work being done and
to plan well, so it won't happen.

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sgt101
The engagement meme is a nightmare.

1) Measure engagement - surveys, more surveys. Targets for managers of the
surveyed, dismissal, removal of bonus. Survey manipulated, rendered political
tool. Lieing all round. Disaster.

2) Targeting of dissent. "we've finished debating, now we're executing" "boss,
there's a brick wall" "you're fired" "oh" "bang" "oh". Anyone who disagrees or
complains about some aspect of central function in anyway it immediately
branded disengaged and targetted for removal.

Here's a rule. No one can practices management consulting unless they have
worked at a fortune 500 for 30 years.

Here's another one. No one can have a chair at a business school unless
they've worked in the C suite of a fortune 500 for 30 years.

This would cut this rubbish right out.

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sobinator
I agree with the sentiment, but let's be honest with ourselves; there aren't
that many type-A people bumping around in most organizations whose talents are
going untapped.

Regardless,

Engagement, in my view, is like a double-edged sword--it cuts both ways. On
one hand, getting employees to "pull the wagon" can immensely add value to the
organization. On the other hand, employees attaching too much of their self-
worth to their work (a consequence of being highly engaged) can lead to
employees' egos being of greater importance than the results.

Low engagement is probably just a symptom of some other organizational ill.

~~~
bediger4000
I'm going to suggest that in my experience with both smaller and larger
companies, management (from those managing grunts to C-level) have more of
what they consider fun in a low-engagement company, and the low employee
engagement is a symptom of management having their version of fun.

------
Animats
The graph showing that companies rated highly by Glassdoor outperform the S&P
500 by a factor of 2.4 is significant. Is there a fund which invests that way?
Vanguard should have a Glassdoor Index Fund.

~~~
tjalfi
The Parnassus Endeavour fund ([https://www.parnassus.com/parnassus-mutual-
funds/endeavor/in...](https://www.parnassus.com/parnassus-mutual-
funds/endeavor/investor-shares/)) is partially based on employee satisfaction.

Here is an excerpt from an interview [0] with the portfolio manager.

John Rotonti: How do you define a high-quality business?

Jerome Dodson: Parnassus Investments defines high-quality companies as those
with competitive advantages, quality management, and responsible business
practices. I believe a high-quality workplace is one of the indicators of
company quality. That's why the Endeavor Fund, which was originally named the
Workplace Fund, focuses on investing in good workplaces.

[0] ([https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/19/interview-with-
jer...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/19/interview-with-jerome-
dodson-of-parnassus-investme.aspx))

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isostatic
We should just use Shift and Option

~~~
twic
Shift yourself to a new job where you get options!

Or if you can't find an opportunity like that, some kind of meta escape?

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mnm1
What a fluff piece. It makes no points whatsoever, just pretends like it can
make janitorial, secretarial, and waitering work fun and exciting but doesn't
offer a single idea on how they plan to do so (because it's impossible). Talk
about delusional! This reads like an ad because it is. No content whatsoever.

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microtherion
"Organizations like Kodak, Blackberry, Motorola, Lehman Brothers and Enron are
but a few of the many companies that became overly comfortable and lost their
battle."

This can be argued for the first three of these, but Lehman and especially
Enron were slaughtered by the relentless pursuit of (financial) innovation and
__absence __of effective control.

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triarchy_%28theory%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triarchy_%28theory%29)
promotes thinking out of the box

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Asooka
How about lowering CEO pay by about 90% and distributing that to employees,
i.e. paying a fair wage adjusted for gains in productivity?

~~~
bskap
If you lowered the CEO of McDonalds's pay by 90% and distributed it to all the
employees, they'd get less than $20 each. It doesn't exactly bump them up to a
living wage.

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trhway
sounds like the companies who get your soul in addition to your brain do
better.

