The P-word. No not that one!

A plague of process

By TigerHawk at 4/29/2008 09:36:00 PM

American society has made process as important as outcome, and it is sucking the energy out of us. It is increasingly true that it is not what you did that matters, but how you did it. It is making us slow and cautious, and that will be fatal to us because the competitive advantage of Americans is in being fast and risky.

There are countless examples in the business world, from Sarbanes-Oxley to ISO-everything to endless compliance training lest one quotes Jeremiah Wright or an episode of Seinfeld in front of an easily offended employee. Process is now so sacrosanct that we are not actually allowed to question its importance; if an executive were to speak out against the status of process, he would be deemed to have undermined the "tone at the top," which is taken to be a critical element of -- you guessed it -- a robust process.

Suffice it to say that I am not questioning the importance of process. But if I were I might notice that one big problem with the cult of procedure is that it gives officious people a lot of power.

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I don't usually write about anything work related, because I think it's a foul, professionally, to air anything like dirty laundry in a public forum such as this. Not stemming from any sort of snobbery or superiority, or a desire to hide from public scrutiny, but because more so I believe firmly in minding one's own business and yes, in the concept of "need to know." Still, this isn't really dirty laundry, this more looking at a troublesome culture, something that I think has tripped us up and instead of fostering all the things it was created to promote: fairness, accountability, safety, integrity, and mission accomplishment, I think what we often get instead is a sense of mission accomplishment IN SPITE of, not because of, the "way we do things."

Okay, the above is probably confusing and meandering, well I don't have a lot of time, but if I don't get this written down it's gonna bug me. Let me be blunt: If I NEVER hear the words "well, sure you got the job done, but I want to understand your process better," I can die a happy MOGS. And to really get the effect, you have to draw out the word ppprocesssssss, as of to emphasize that should trump everything.

There are two types of people in business, the military, government and formalized schooling: "process men" (to use an old management term I can not remember the source of at the moment) and "results men." Rather than just disparage one and blindly praise the other, let me say this: both are necessary. I mean this. No BS. Sincerely. As much as it pains me, and it does trust me, Lt and even young Capt MOGS would have sooner cut himself emo-stylee than admit that.

I consider myself a "results" man, I've gone so far as to give basic mission-type orders to trusted, capable subordinates that consisted of no more than "get it done. Don't break the law. Back brief me in two days/six hours/whatever timeframe. Off you go." That is honestly my preferred methodology of leading and managing. But, unless your people come to you pre-built with that much autonomy, skill and will, you need to employ "process" to get them there. Some people will NEVER get there, no matter what, and that's how they're wired I think. No harm no foul, but I think people have particular abilities and talents: some which can be altered or improved via training, some through fostering individual growth (education, etc). Sometimes, you top out at "go here. do this. do this in this way. do this in this way in this timeframe." End of story.

The two need to be balanced. There NEEDS to be some level of friction between the two approaches, life does not need to be happy happy kumbayah blah blah blah.

Process though, when it's NOT tied to a result, when it exists for itself and itself alone, is not only painful it is FRAKKING USELESS!!!!! Let me say that again, USELESS, not only useless, it gets in the goddamn way.
On the flipside, when you let "results" run unfettered though, all of sudden options in the name of "operational needs" and "expediency" can come on the table, and some of them aren't necessarily safe, and in extreme cases ethically questionable. What's worse, is it's difficult to pass along things that actually work without any emphasis at all on capturing what you did, how you did it, and maybe figuring out just how and why it worked.

Process also, when it's allowed to spiral out of control, quickly creates little empires which metastasize, get entrenched, create jobs and authority for well, people who really shouldn't have jobs and authority. "Process" can have the tendency to create sclerosis. Policy grows, but the earlier foundations and scaffolding usually remains too. You very rarely hear about things being "rescinded" or dismantled, but built upon, boy that's nonstop. The problem with that sclerosis, it chokes innovation, it punishes maverick thinking, and eventually creates the scenario for the results-minded folks to do the things I mention above, or get caught in a quandary that might cost them their jobs, or if they're wrong, someone's life. At the very least, it creates annoying controversial loudmouths like John Boyd, the Military Reform Movement, you get the idea.

I call this scenario, and you're going to want to write this down Antitool, and Pidge, for all your your Lts and Lts-to-be reading this, this is good future bar napkin discussions when MOGSY comes to town for his reunion or whatnot, the difference between a "risk" and a "gamble." There's a discussion in an article I found on the website for Parameters at the Army War College that referenced this idea in terms of Gen Patton's Third Army in France. I'm damn willing to take risks. Gambles are more like Vegas odds: needless to say, you ain't never gonna beat the house.

Does that mean I need a frakkin' "ORM" program? Does that mean I need anything derived solely from the aircrew side of the house and applied to all of directly in the 1g mach 0.0 environment?

Let me put it this way: I've been involved in training, instructing, and evaluating for the VAST majority of my 13 years in the service, in one uniform or another. The Air Force aircrew way of doing things: a structured training program, with phases, stoplights, benchmarks, yes/no type points in the "process" of creating a fully qualified knife-in-the-teeth Yankee Air Pirate sticks around because of one very simple reason: it works. I've been heavily involved in helping to implement a version of it into Pidge and mine's core career field. It ain't been pretty overall, but I think, for once, it's helping to build a new credibility and an "operator" mindset where one hasn't always lived.

The downside to doing things the "operator way" is the foregone conclusion that everything needs checklists. That everything needs "standardization and evaluation" (Stan/Eval), that everything need TTPs. That everything needs "process." Well, let me be the first to tell you that sometimes, like I told a mentor and friend of mine some years ago at the 'Deid, sometimes you need to say "Frak process!" (If you really think the word was "frak" you're a bigger nerd than I gave you credit for).

Not everything needs to be done that way. Part of the problem with the "aircrew" model is that is also brought with it a lot of things that don't necessarily translate all that well outside the cockpit but that hasn't stopped well-meaning, well-intentioned people from trying. From trying to control things that well, you can't reach into everybody's heads and control. Yes, I am talking about things like the Safety Empire, the Operational Risk Management (I remember when it was Cockpit or Crew Resource Management) Empires, all the ancillary training in the world (which when you boil it down is very much a permanent fixture of technocratic/bureaucratic mindsets - liability avoidance aka CYA aka "it ain't OUR fault, you were BRIEFED after-all" training), and shudder..TQM and "Process Improvement Management." At some point, you have to look at someone and say - if you don't wear a seatbelt or whatever, you're an idiot. It's your fault. I don't care how many briefings, how many "blood on the highway" videos we see (and man, they CAN be effective I won't lie), you are NOT going to get the accident rates down to zero.

I would also say that it can breed another legalistic and moral fallacy, the "Zero Tolerance" culture. Zero tolerance makes for GREAT rhetoric, and lousy policy. For one thing it's a lie, as I don't think I've ever seen it applied, fully, anywhere civilian or military, and two, because it ties the hands of leaders to deal with problems on an appropriate level - a "just response" turns into "well, we've talked ourselves into a corner, and now we have to follow through." Furthermore, because the consequences of "zero tolerance" can be so high, who's to say how many times someone has said "well we'll let this slide" - that's dangerous too. I won't go into "realistic" expectations, because I have other things to do, but you can see what else this touches.

Let's talk about risk-avoidance and responsibility: you can't save everyone, no matter how hard you try and well-intentioned. We spend more time trying to avoid lawsuits and bad press than we should. The downside to being overly-results focused, and it IS possible...("Code Red" anyone? YOU'RE GODDAMNED RIGHT I DID!") is that WHEN you fail at something, you tend to fail SPECTACULARLY. Failures of process can be just as bad and dangerous, but the beauty of those are the guilt tends to get spread around, and focused more on "systemic" problems than say "personality" or "scapegoating" of any one individual. Just my opinion.

The Air Force operates based on training. On standards, on measurable and quantifiable results; objective criteria and "metrics." That's all fine. I've been a part of building and defining those very things, but we need to remember something. I don't care what all the retired O-6 or whatever contractors say, "process" doesn't kill anyone. A "kill chain" doesn't kill bad guys. Men and women with guns, or bombs, or whatever, kill bad guys and build schools, water pumps, and whatever else we're told to build. A training _program_ doesn't produce finely honed tools of war and peace. Trained personnel are those tools. Process is just that; _process_, and god help the poor, tiny souls mired in it. I don't count them in the "first to be eaten" mostly because paper is a great insulator, and because it'll take the zombies a while to dig through all that.

I don't claim to have all the answers, and I don't claim to be universally right. I do think though, that I have earned the right to soapbox a little on these issues, as do all leaders at all levels, no matter what you do.

Think I'm wrong? Or callous? The floor's open, it's your turn.

V/R

MOGS