THE FUTURE OF WORK—LIVING THE EXPERIMENT
MANAGEMENT AND MISSION COMMAND
Douglas McGregor was a professor of management at MIT in the 1950s who developed the Theory X and Theory Y models of work motivation and management. Essentially, a person who subscribes to the Theory Y style of management would believe that employ- ees are generally self-motivated to do their work, and can be trusted to complete their tasks without close supervision. Theory X, on the other hand, states that employees are inherently lazy and lack ambition, and that they must be punished or rewarded in order to maintain productivity.
DEVCOM’s willingness to embrace telework, remote work and hybrid work seems to have a few things in common with McGregor’s Theory Y, and Willison also sees a parallel between that model and the Army’s mission command doctrine.
“I have not always been a Theory Y person. I was a strong Theory X person for a period of my career,” Willi- son laughed. As he tells it, the change occurred around the time the Army was transitioning from a command- and-control doctrine to mission command. “The whole premise of command and control was very hierarchi- cal. Orders come from the top, they’re pushed down, they’re implemented below, and you manage compli- ance. This was the Army’s doctrine.” As the Army began to grapple with unconventional adversaries in Afghan- istan and Iraq, Willison said leaders began to realize “this wasn’t working.”
“We were fighting an enemy without a hierarchy, we were fighting an enemy that was very adaptive, things were moving and changing so fast on the ground, that if we really wanted to fight more effectively, we had to go to mission command. That is, commanders give broad intent and then they enable disciplined initiative based on trust, within that intent, and then we saw how things turned around.”
On a personal level, Willison had the same realiza- tion. “For me, I was working in the mission command space, and it happened to be right at a period where I was starting to figure out that Theory X also was not a great leadership model and I was not seeing it be as effective,” he laughed. “At one point, I had a little professional crisis and said ‘Geez, I’ve gotta figure
TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
Some managers believe employees are inherently lazy and need to be punished or rewarded to maintain productivity. Others believe employees are generally self-motivated and don’t need close supervision. (Graphic by the author)
out a different way.’ So, if this works for the Army, why wouldn’t it work as a leadership model? As a leader, what I’m doing is providing broad intent and giving you trust to apply disciplined initiative within that intent. When you think of ‘future of work,’ it’s really an exten- sion of that.”
“It’s like, if you trusted me enough to hire me, then trust me enough to work on something without watch- ing me, or thinking that watching me is going to make me more productive. Frankly, the people who work hard are going to work hard no matter where they are. The people who don’t work hard, aren’t going to work hard, no matter where they are,” Willison said. “The notion that, if you’re watching them, they’re going to work hard, it just doesn’t work and it’s exhausting, as a leader. I got there through a series of hard lessons.”
54
Army AL&T Magazine
Spring 2022
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140
