The Organizational Culture in the Army - Research Paper Example

Prof’s Organizational Behavior in a Headquarters Company of the United s Military Every organization has its own distinct way of doing things, and systemic and cultural elements that led to a distinct organizational behavior amongst the staff. My current workplace is a Headquarters and Headquarters Company based out of Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. A headquarters and headquarters company (HHC) is in many ways a company just like any other, with a battalion commander, executive officers and so on. In most ways its structures and culture mirror those found elsewhere in the Army. A HHC has a distinctive role, however – it carries out the administrative responsibilities of a battalion, brigade or division, and is thus steps removed from actual military engagement, and has some similarities to other office-style environments that are so common in workplaces. My particular HHC is made up of a battalion commander, a battalion executive officer (XO), a personnel officer, an operations officer, a logistics officer, and a communication officer as its main leadership. In addition to this, it has a chaplain, and a series of NCOs and enlisted personnel of various stripes, who serve as support personnel, as well as an army lawyer who is charged with carrying out all of the legal responsibilities of the HHC. The unique nature of the HHC, with its army background and office-centered nature leads to unique organizational behavior. Many parts of organization behavior, such as motivation, power, decision making job matching and so forth are not given a great deal of attention, being assumed as something fait accompli, while communication flow is nearly entirely unidirectional, which can lead to tension amongst staff that go unnoticed for long periods of time. The organizational culture in the army is something that is quite different from most places of employment. It is obviously strictly authoritarian, with absolute compliance to any directive from above being necessary, though it also usually allows for a great deal of decision making at each particular level – there is a strict chain of command but, in practice, minimal micromanagement from my own observations. The hierarchy, however, is clear and well defined – there is no ambiguity about authority or chain of command in the military, unlike many other workplaces which sometimes have lateral roles that compete or override each other. The organizational chart in the military is clear, and there is rarely doubt about whose jurisdictions certain decisions are made from. In terms of relationships between people in the work place, the military is also unique. In most work places there is some degree of separation between management and employee (Smith 2000), and this is often viewed as being healthy for the business, because excessive familiarity can unduly affect management priorities. In the military, however, such distance is extreme. Officers will rarely if ever socialize with enlisted men, and doing so would be seen as extraordinarily strange. Likewise, there are serious rules of etiquette that reinforce once superior or subordinate status frequently – things like salutes, standing at attention and so on. This creates nearly insurmountable distance between one’s superior and one’s self, in most cases at least. This distance is less pronounced the closer one becomes on an organizational chart (for instance, non commissioned officers will often be somewhat familiar with enlisted personnel), but this familiarity can be removed again at an instant with a sharp word or reminder of rank. Likewise, interoffice romances, so often frowned upon in corporate settings, are more explicitly disallowed by military ordinance, and someone could face dismissal or even legal charges for disobeying orders if they were ordered not to engage in such relationship, or ordered to end one. The realities of power structures and relationships in the military, where life and death can sometimes come with the quick following of orders, are remarkably different from other spaces, with various consequences for organizational behavior. Motivation has long been of great interest to employers, who understand that a well motivated workforce will accomplish its goals much better, and with better moral, than in a place with inadequate or lacking motivation (Tensoe, Ricci & Severt 2005). In particular, it seems that certain kinds of motivation create healthier work environments than others (Martin 2001). Motivational factors often considered include: money, lifestyle, career advancement, personal satisfaction, interpersonal relationships and other forms of self actualization (Tenso, Ricci & Severt 2007). It has been found that people working for reasons other than money tend to have higher rates of productivity, be more satisfied with their jobs, and even demand less money (Martin 2001). Many companies have used these theories to excellent effect in helping form a highly productive while competitively paid work force. Apple, for instance, pays its salespeople less than many other large chains – Best Buy, Sam’s Club, Macy’s all pay their workers higher wages than Apple employees (Brooke 2012), despite the fact that Apple has the highest sales per square foot of any retailer in the United States (Brooke 2012). They do so by invoking other forms of motivation than simply money – by telling employees that they are part of something bigger than themselves, a movement (Brooke 2012), and that they are helping people and making other people’s lives better (Brooke 2012). Obviously a critical analysis of motivational structures has myriad benefits, both saving the company money and improving workplace satisfaction and moral, which further benefits the company through higher production. In the military, however, motivation is taken as something of a fait accompli, and very little attention is paid to it in the workforce. What motivation does come from superiors or structures tends to take on the form of fear and intimidation – people who do not accomplish their tasks, and do not have a good reason for doing so will face discipline, which takes the form of anything from verbal reprimands (by far the most common form) to more formal disciplinary action (Weibull 2006). According to an interview conducted with a non-commissioned officer who works with me, and who needs to remain anonymous considering the consequences of speaking publicly about command structures and those in leadership positions, a large part of the army culture that surrounds the company is the idea that “you are expected to be self-motivated […] you joined the army, you knew what you were getting in to. Its intense. Its hard work. And if you don’t do it you will be drummed out, it’s as simple as that” (Personal Correspondence 2012). The military thus seems to think that its culture, reputation and training scheme lead to self-selection of motivated people, but does not pay a great deal of attention to what those motivations are. The military also seems to not consider the motivation incredibly important, because anyone failing to meet their standards will be dealt with in very specific and defined ways, and can usually be replaced by an equally trained person. It is thus, from the military’s perspective, unimportant to identify motivating factors – a person will find enough to motivate themselves, or be will be disciplined or replaced, so the work will get done regardless. There is a relative paucity of research done for motivations involved with joining the army above the level of non-enlisted personnel, who often enlist out of some combination of economic necessity, educational potential, masculinity (regardless of gender – masculinity as toughness, power and so on), and patriotism (Wilson 2008). The majority of staff at a HHC, however, functions above the level of enlisted personnel – they are almost entirely officers, non-commissioned officers, rounded out by a small number of specially trained enlisted personnel. One may presume that the motivational factors that inspire officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) are similar to a combination of those found in the general public and those that are more exclusive to the military, but without further research it is impossible to say exactly what the motivating factors of such people are, and they may in fact have some completely unique properties not mentioned by either civilian or enlisted personnel. While military logic regarding the lack of need to identify motivating behaviors is somewhat understandable from an organization perspective, I would still argue that the military could benefit greatly from working harder to understand the motivations of those who work within an HHC. The military’s strategy does an excellent job of finding people who meet requirements and encouraging them to do so, but does very little to encourage exceptional behavior. For instance, if someone was working for the opportunities to learn and advance their careers, they would probably do much wore work if put in a situation that allowed them such room to grow, while someone who was working purely out of patriotic duties might be better trusted with sensitive information. The lack of understanding of motivations that encourage working at an HHC ensures that, while the military may always get employees that meet their expectations, few will exceed them drastically, unless their own motivations happen to line up with their duties by chance. As mentioned in the section regarding organizational culture, other aspects of military life beyond motivation are likewise treated as fait accompli, such as power, authority, organizational structure, job and task assignments, attitudes, emotions and so forth. Much of the organizational behavior in the army is not up for discussion, either because of longstanding tradition, or a variety of other reasons. There is, however, one place that I believe organizational behavior may be problematic and could be shifted. This is the realm of communication and flow of information. In the military, as mentioned previously, there is a strict and well understood organizational chart, and people often have a great deal of personal, emotional and professional distance from people below or above them. They rarely socialize together (Weibull 2006), are rarely working in the same area (either in terms of task or physical location), and they do not often work in close proximity on the same project. As mentioned previously, such distance can have benefits in terms of management, but can also have some weaknesses. One of the fundamental problems with this distance is that it can create circumstances in which strong two-way communication becomes absent. There have been numerous studies that indicate that excellent two way communication between employee and supervisor improves not only the working conditions of both, but can also help achieve long term organizational aims situations without strong two-way communication (Martin 2001). Often strong two way communication can allow a worker to suggest methods of doing something that might be better than those currently used, allows task updates to go more smoothly (Martin 2001), and ensures that both people are as informed as possible. In many cases, increased contact between supervisor and supervisee is a way to help create such communication, and though it comes with a whole host of other troubles, supervisors and employees who work more closely tend to have better two-way communication than those that do not (Martin 2006). This contact, however, is unfortunately not possible in the military, because other needs supersede the need for two way communication. The military is an interesting work environment in that a supervisor may have to order his supervisee into an incredibly dangerous situation, or possibly even on a suicide mission if the stakes were great enough. Excessive familiarity would complicate matters in such situations infinitely. Firstly, they would place an undue burden on the supervisor forced to make such a decision. Sending one’s troops into harm’s way is difficult enough, but if they are also one’s friends and companions it would be even more difficult. Furthermore, when one person is sent into a dangerous situation they cannot be questioning whether they were chosen for the duties because their superior officer was friends with another person of their rank, and that they wanted to protect their friends from such a dangerous situation. Given these considerations, the military has a vested interest in keeping significant amounts of distance both in working and personal relationships between people of different levels of hierarchy within the organization. It might seem natural, then, that two-way communication takes a back seat to the needs of creating distance between levels within an organization. Further complicating matters for two-way communication is the power structure ensconced in military values. The military has similar reasons for creating intense power differential between levels of an organization as it does for creating extreme distance: it simply is a requirement for a well functioning military that people cannot question orders for any reason. But this atmosphere of not questioning can also take a toll on two way communication. The fact is that a subordinate will have to establish extremely good reasons for attempting to alter or discuss an order, and can only do so if the order is not pressing. Though, as mentioned previously, this is all necessary, in a space like an HHC which is tremendous administrative responsibilities this process probably means that there are some inefficiencies that go unquestioned because of the atmosphere of power that diffuses throughout this space, and the unwillingness of people to speak up to their superiors, and, occasionally, for superiors to listen to subordinates. This means that two-way communication is not very present in the military, and communication and information tend to be almost entirely unidirectional, moving from superiors downwards. Orders are given downwards, but very little feedback or suggestion for different actions that could be taken would move upwards. That is not to say that the direction of communication is entirely unidirectional by any means – reports on progress through tasks and so forth are all directed upwards, but these come solely at the demand of superiors – they are not spontaneously generated by the people who make them. There are a wide variety of consequences of this, but the most important is that superiors only get information that they actually request from their subordinates. This means that there can be a huge paucity of information regarding issues that superiors choose not to request reports on – everything from interoffice conflicts to possible ideas for different ways to do things. This problem is, however, not unique to the military , and organizational structures can be brought about to shift it. The difference is that when an instance occurs of such great distance and power imbalance between subordinates and superiors, it is essential that a clear and distinct method for two-way communication is present and encouraged. In great distances in both culture and power between levels of an organization, there need to be ways of creating two-way communication. This could be done in a variety of ways, from one-on-one discussions and meetings, to something as simple as a suggestion box. But in order for two way communication to grow and flourish in a military organization such as my own, there needs to be a mechanism in place to encourage it; it will not happen spontaneously. This would correct the greatest problem in my workplace, which is a lack of two-way communication that creates problems at a variety of different levels in management and communication. The organizational behavior at the HHC where I work is certainly unique when compared to that of business ventures in civilian life. Firstly, many things that are often considered very deeply, such as motivation, power structure, ethics and so forth are not considered to any significant degree: essentially it is felt that there are mechanisms in place prior to the stage of actually being employed that will make sure none of these aspects of behavior ever become problematic. I would argue, however, that this is a mistake, and that greater attention needs to be paid to these areas in order to actually achieve peak productivity from workers, rather than simply productivity that is adequate when faced with very high standards. Furthermore, communication in this organization is quite unique, being almost entirely unidirectional based on the vast social, economic, power and other differences between different levels of the organization. This too has, up until this point, not been critically examined to any great degree, which could be detrimental to the entire organization. The fact is that the military has a unique set of operating requirements that will not be present in any other type of workforce. These operating requirements, however, simply mean that more effort should be put into bridging the problems that come from them, not that those problems should be ignored. Having distinctive, well entrenched policies to encourage two way communications, along with possibly examining motivational factors that make up the work environment, could significantly increase the productivity, creativity and happiness of people in this work environment. Works Cited BROOKE D. (2011). Apple employees celebrate jobs, stores close. New York Times. April 21. Martin, J. (2001). Organizational culture: Mapping the terrain. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Smith, R. (2000). Increasing workplace motivation.Healthcare Executive, 15(2), 24. Tesone, D. V., Ricci, P., & Severt, D. (2005). Workplace motivation and mental development. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 8(4), 21-36. doi:10.1300/J369v08n04_03 Weibull, A. (2006). Military culture. (pp. 237-254). Boston, MA: Springer US. doi:10.1007/0-387-34576-0_14 Wilson, P. (2008). Defining military culture. The Journal of Military History, 72(1), 11. Read More