Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

54 • Leading the Human Dimensions Out of a Legacy of Failure• People who work for an organization are subordinates expected to do whatthey are assigned to do and not much else.• People who work for an organization are dependent on the organization fortheir livelihood.Drucker also made a number of suggestions about the management of people thatseem to be relevant for any service human dimension as well:• Employees must be managed as if they were volunteers.• Many employees are knowledge workers who must be managed as if they areassociates, not subordinates.• Employees need a challenge. They must know and believe in the mission.• Employees have to be managed as partners whose goals are aligned with thegoals of the organization.• Maximize the performance of people by capitalizing on their strengths andtheir knowledge rather than by trying to force them into molds.As technology spreads around the world, the only competitive advantage the UnitedStates can hope to have is the productivity of its knowledge workers.It is evident after studying Drucker and other scholars of business leadership thattoday’s military personnel management (vice human resources leadership) is based oninvalid assumptions, including requirements for mass mobilization, equity, a surplusof pseudo-command qualified officers that drive centralized management, individualevaluation systems, and the “up-or-out” personnel promotion system. These willeach be described in detail below. If these assumptions are no longer valid, then thedirection for a solution is clear: Develop a human resources leadership model thatis adaptable and focused on developing leaders earlier and that places people wherethey best serve the military and the nation, while providing units to accomplish fullspectrummissions.Foundation: Leading Human Resources and the Future ForceWe predominately use Army case studies, nevertheless, all the services and the Departmentof Defense will find that much of what we present can be extrapolated andapplied with great fidelity. To date, the Army’s efforts to uncover the human resourcerequirements of the future force have generated projects like the “Pentathlete,” con-