Substack Welcome from Michael Wade

Where I'm Coming from and Where We'll Be Going

I became fascinated with management in the 1970s as a dashing young Army officer assigned to the headquarters of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command (USACIDC) in Washington, D.C.

USACIDC had field offices around the world. Its Special Agents investigated serious crimes within the Army. A natural question for those of us in the headquarters was how a decision made in Washington, D.C. would look after it went through several levels before reaching personnel on the ground in places as diverse as West Germany, South Korea, and California.

After getting degrees in government and law, I’d gone through the Army’s Institute of Administration’s training for Adjutant General Officers. Prior to reaching the Army, however, the most memorable reading I’d completed on management was The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior by Herbert Kaufman. A sign of my impending management nerd status was that while other students in the public administration class thought the book was boring, I found it to be fascinating.

One person’s passion is another one’s bore. I promise that in the upcoming Substack essays, I will avoid inflicting arcane management theories but will pass along practical information that is easy to understand, and which can be put to immediate use.

Let’s start with a flashback.

I’m in a meeting in the Pentagon and an officer says “Officers in the Pentagon are like lightbulbs. One burns out and they replace him with another.”

He was joking but you could tell he thought the remark was more true than false.

And decades later, that remark still bothers me.

If the idea that people are as easily replaced as light bulbs is common, it’s a strong sign of a dysfunctional organization. [Its polar opposite - “We’re all family here” - is another signal that reality is a stranger. When families encounter hard economic times, they don’t put grandma on the street.]

The fact is that organizations are as strong as their people. They are as honest and loyal and competent and ethical as their people.

And when I say people, I don’t mean “resources” or “capital.” I mean individuals with strengths, weaknesses, dreams, and fears.

These groups of people are not well-oiled machines, and they never will be.

You can replace light bulbs and machine parts, but you never replace people. You can refill the person’s position, but you never replace the person.

People are unique bundles of skills, intellect, and experience. I’ve seen organizations that suffer for years after one person leaves.

Unfortunately, when a person submits a resignation, the usual question is “What sort of farewell gift are we going to get for Tom or Maria?”

A farewell gift? In the case of a valued employee, the initial response should be “How can we persuade you to stay?”

And yet that is rarely asked. The organization assumes the expense of recruiting and training a new person rather than at least making an attempt to persuade the experienced person to stay.

There are exceptions. Some organizations have retention programs. As a law firm in San Francisco told me, “If one of our lawyers is leaving for more money, we might not be able to do anything, but if it’s something else, we will do our best to persuade the person to stay.”

Bravo!

But if an organization is not a machine, what is it?

Shell executive Arie De Geus noted years ago that the machine metaphor doesn’t hold up. If anything, organizations more closely resemble farms. Farmers have to do certain things are certain times. They cannot plant on Monday and harvest on Tuesday. They have to consider external forces - such as storms, insects, and droughts – that can quickly undo their efforts. They live with unpredictability.

I suggest an augmented metaphor: a farm in a jungle. Aside from the normal activities of a farm, there is also a jungle that is always trying to grow back over trails and crops. If certain tasks are neglected, the jungle grows back. There is no benign neglect of a chore. Neglect can be lethal.

It would be pleasant if we as a team could take prolonged vacations from our responsibilities, but unless things are being covered, the jungle will come back.

I believe the slogan of an athletic club in Moscow hits the mark: “Think like a gardener. Work like a carpenter.”

The gardener, like the farmer, is growing things through care and diligence: weeding, watering, and enriching. The gardener has a paced sense of growth.

The carpenter is studying, measuring, cutting, and sanding. The carpenter has a precise view of how things fit together.

The gardener may take the longer view, but the carpenter knows the necessity of focus on what is nearby.

Merge the two and you have a powerful combination.

We’ll be exploring these and related concepts in future posts.

Welcome aboard!