EXIT INTERVIEW: CULTURE STILL EATS STRATEGY


for breakfast.” Not meaning that strategy isn’t important, but that it can be either facilitated or hampered by organizational culture. And it was Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, who wrote, in his revela- tory memoir, “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?,” that culture was perhaps the single most important thing in executing a large corporate turnaround.


We could have a very long discourse on what we believe our DOD culture is today. But suffice it to say we are very large, hierarchical, rule-laden, centralized,


mechanistic and bureaucratic. DOD has two dominant subcultures:


1. A highly mobile military force, typi- cally serving for shorter job and career spans, filled with periodic promotion opportunities based upon performance and potential.


2. A civilian workforce, enjoying fewer such evaluative opportunities, with promotions being more vacancy-based and with job tenure being rewarded over merit, especially during a reduc- tion in force.


Perhaps tongue in cheek, Drucker also once said, “So much of what we call management consists of making it diffi- cult for people to work.” The many pages of acquisition rules and regula- tions, coupled with the many layers and branches of management, make those charged with actually being change agents feel swamped by the red tape. In his clas- sic treatise on organizational behavior, “Images of Organization,” Gareth Morgan said that large mechanistic organizations have difficulty adapting to change and are not designed for innovation. He makes a strong case for compatibility between


WHO’S DRIVING HERE?


Former Army Acquisition Executive Heidi Shyu understood from firsthand experience how disruptive it was for program managers to have to attend so many meetings and obtain so many signoffs before getting to a decision. She used this image frequently to get other people to understand how the culture of Army acquisition valued permission at the expense of progress. Army stakeholders are represented in green, Congress in gold, and external stakeholders in red. (Image courtesy of Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology)


92


Army AL&T Magazine


Spring 2021


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