Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
Charts like this happen when you try to get organizations to think instead of relying on people in organizations to think. When every thought has to be justified, and every action has to be traceable to an approved initiative, organizations end up with charts like this. It's the very essence of centralization.
I'm reminded of Hunt for Red October: "Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan."
The Russians didn't trust their people without supervision.
Unfortunately, .ppt it leads to the best and most brilliant becoming experts at a PC tool and being rewarded for it. It's electronic images in a nifty MS progam.
No terrorist has been sent to Allah by powerpoint alone.
If a presentation, backed by baseline reaearch/strategy and resultant discussion can't be covered in 10 pages and 30 minutes, you've lost most mid-grade officers. Ya think the esteemed senior bubba's are getting it then? Let's look at our results to date. Keep it, but shrink it.
SUch thinking is so ingrained in us that recently, with a fairly sophisticated product to be completed in a 3-hour wargame move, half of the input in building the slide deck was about matching font, indenting, and prettying up the presentation instead of developing a quality plan.
Gone are the days where an OPORD could be written and briefed from the back of a C-rat box. As if the enemy will give us time to set up the LCD projector and brief the slides. And we wonder why our planning process is so incredibly slow and our OODA loop so easily disrupted?
When I was an Ensign, I was working in the TOC in Korea and w/in a day I had figured that if the NorKos wanted to beat us, all they had to do was inject a ppt virus into our system. I would shove 45 minutes of work into a 12 hour shift while my bosses would fret over line colore and width, font size, etc. Now THAT is warrior ethos! PowerPoint Rangers UP! Bleah
Charts like this happen when you try to get organizations to think instead of relying on people in organizations to think. When every thought has to be justified, and every action has to be traceable to an approved initiative, organizations end up with charts like this. It's the very essence of centralization.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Hunt for Red October: "Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan."
The Russians didn't trust their people without supervision.
Unfortunately, .ppt it leads to the best and most brilliant becoming experts at a PC tool and being rewarded for it. It's electronic images in a nifty MS progam.
ReplyDeleteNo terrorist has been sent to Allah by powerpoint alone.
If a presentation, backed by baseline reaearch/strategy and resultant discussion can't be covered in 10 pages and 30 minutes, you've lost most mid-grade officers. Ya think the esteemed senior bubba's are getting it then? Let's look at our results to date. Keep it, but shrink it.
SUch thinking is so ingrained in us that recently, with a fairly sophisticated product to be completed in a 3-hour wargame move, half of the input in building the slide deck was about matching font, indenting, and prettying up the presentation instead of developing a quality plan.
ReplyDeleteGone are the days where an OPORD could be written and briefed from the back of a C-rat box. As if the enemy will give us time to set up the LCD projector and brief the slides. And we wonder why our planning process is so incredibly slow and our OODA loop so easily disrupted?
NFO - Sadly, you've just described the Sabranes-Oxley law governing public traded corporations in America.
ReplyDeleteAndrewb,
ReplyDeleteGold Star! Wait'll you see the healthcare version of the Sarbanes-Oxley nightmare.
When I was an Ensign, I was working in the TOC in Korea and w/in a day I had figured that if the NorKos wanted to beat us, all they had to do was inject a ppt virus into our system. I would shove 45 minutes of work into a 12 hour shift while my bosses would fret over line colore and width, font size, etc. Now THAT is warrior ethos! PowerPoint Rangers UP! Bleah
ReplyDelete