Air University Review, September-October 1979

and other reasons the program
has not worked in the military

In 1977, a representative group of 251 lieutenant colonels and colonels from all services were surveyed to determine their experiences in management by objectives (MBO) and their opinions regarding the effectiveness of the MBO concept.^l At the time of the survey, the officers were on active duty, and all of them responded openly to the questions posed in the survey. The officers were asked first to describe their experiences with MBO techniques. Of this group, 137 had prior experience in MBO programs, and the 114 remaining had had no MBO experience. Those with prior MBO experience were asked to describe their best and worst MBO experiences and to comment generally on the overall value of the programs. Officers with no prior MBO experiences were asked to express theoretical opinions regarding the value of goal-oriented programs.

Fifty-two (or 46 percent) of the 114 officers without MBO experience felt that MBO strategies theoretically represent sound management practice. Sixty-two (or 54 percent) expressed the opposite judgment for two significant reasons: that such approaches cannot work effectively because of the rank structure, perceived role of the leader, and top-level support; and that MBO approaches are unworkable because of the military way of doing business--uncontrollable variables, such as rapid personnel turnover, crisis management, and time constraints.

How do these theoretical assessments compare with the opinions of the 137 officers with MBO experience? A dismal 8 (or 6 percent) unequivocally supported this management strategy, and 43 (or 31 percent) found the experience of little or no value. One can argue that the remaining 86 (or 63 percent) also fall into this category except that these officers qualified their statements with the hedge that "the techniques failed, but might have succeeded if...."

These officers' best and worst experiences with MBO provide still another interesting excursion. Almost unanimously the descriptions of the best experiences cited the opportunity to define objectives more clearly because of more open communication and formal statements of organizational goals. One should note that many officers took a negative, rather venomous approach to this particular question (e.g., "There was no best experience!").

The responses regarding worst experiences read like a who's who of Dale D. McConkey's "20 Ways to Kill Management by Objectives."² Variations of poor implementation top the list. Such experiences as excessive paperwork, unrealistic goals, poor follow-up, and lack of top-level involvement were mentioned no fewer than 74 times. The perception that MBO programs are no more than exercises in paper shuffling was expressed 17 times. The question of whether such programs are even workable in a military environment because of rapid changes in personnel, crisis management, and basic inflexibility arose 19 times. While it might be argued that these same officers were responsible for the failure of the programs, it nonetheless bears out, to some extent, the fears of those officers who had only speculated on the potential dangers of such programs.

Such empirical data support the observation that, except in isolated instances, MBO in the military community is anything but a raging success. Why? Certainly, this popular management tool contains all of the elements necessary to improve the effectiveness of any organization--participation, support, communication, clear goals, and job satisfaction; they are bywords of success in any arena. But the basic question is: Can and should MBO be made to work in the military environment?

There can be little disagreement that military organizations have always depended on objectives. Objectives are the catalysts for choosing tomorrow's chores and drawing up next year's budget requests. They provide continuity, put all members of the organization on the same track, and provide an excellent medium for transition in a time of ever-increasing personnel turnovers. When one recognizes that the military consists not of whipping boys and mindless sheep but of people with individual needs and motivations, the direction of an organization through a participative, self-actualizing approach appears to represent a sound policy. In fact, one can argue that systematic goal setting is the very essence of an effective organization. Indeed, the hit-or-miss alternative to establishing objectives is an extremely unpalatable choice. Can an institution even survive without a clear understanding of its goals? It seems that the military, with its diminishing resources, expanding missions, and loving attention to such planning matrices as the planning-programming-budgeting system (PPBS) and zero base budgeting (ZBB), would seize on the industry-proven tool of management by objectives. But such has not been the case.

Apparently three major classes of problems work against the successful operation of MBO in a military environment. First, there are universal dangers inherent in any MBO effort within the public or private sector. Second, serious problems arise in implementing the concept of MBO in the public sector. Finally, MBO presents a special class of problems in the unique atmosphere surrounding the military.

Regardless of the environment, most MBO programs share several weaknesses. First, top-level managers, as a rule, are not equipped for the multiple roles necessitated by an MBO program. Today, the average supervisor in a fighter squadron or a branch of the IBM Corporation does not customarily administer discipline at one moment and then enter a conciliatory atmosphere of contract negotiation at the next moment. On the other hand, subordinates customarily perform their jobs according to the requirements of their supervisors. True, most subordinates can be reoriented, but there is little doubt that this is the general atmosphere pervading contemporary superior-subordinate relations.

A second universal imbalance lies in the manner of making the decision to implement an MBO program. This decision is basic to everything that follows, and it is certainly not participative! Contracts and other alien techniques that comprise an MBO program seem inconsistent with this ominous beginning. A new management technique is announced, followed by a four-hour mandatory training session, and, just that quickly, one is engulfed in a new way of doing business. Here again, a little thought and a fair degree of finesse can eliminate these problems of implementation. However, as noted earlier 74 officers experienced in MBO cited poor implementation as a major weakness in MBO programs.

Finally, cohesion obviously cannot be dictated. In some extraordinary but temporary circumstances, even the most disheartened and poorly disciplined subordinates will group together to "take that hill" or to meet a deadline. Over the long-term, however, the conditions of the organization must be conducive to such an atmosphere of mutual cooperation.

Much has been written about the MBO approach in the public sector. These writings suggest all of the usual do's and don'ts, as well as a host of rules for dealing with the unique arena of the public servant. However, I have no knowledge of outstanding success stories of any scope anywhere in the federal government.³ This perception is enhanced when one perceives MBO in such classical terms as joint identification of objectives, mutual support, and participative methods. The Air Force Personnel Plan (AFPP), for example, uses an excellent listing of milestones, systematically reviewed by the Executive Council and purportedly operating with the full support of the elite of the Air Staff.

I do not share John W. Gardner's strong indictment of public servants, when as Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, he said: "When you figure out how to hold a middle level bureaucrat accountable, it'll be comparable to landing on the moon." Middle level bureaucrats are a more responsive group than that described by Mr. Gardner. However, his statement does encourage thought on the nature of the public servant, his security needs, his motivation, and even his competence in some instances. Indeed, these factors contribute to the failure of MBO programs in the federal sector.

In a superb article written for MSU Business Topics, Edward J. Ryan, Jr., a faculty member at Nichols College, points out some of the defects of MBO in the public sector.⁴ This article summarizes a previous study of71 high-level government officials in the Internal Revenue Service, the Civil Service Commission, the Department of Justice, and similar organizations. Since he conducted the study two years after these agencies implemented MBO, Dr. Ryan recognizes that his conclusions may be premature, but I do not believe that time will alter his findings.

The conclusions of the study suggest a drastic failure of MBO where it has been implemented in federal agencies. It strongly implies, for example, that highly placed officials consider MBO as nothing more than semantics and faddism--another name for the planning-programming-budgeting system. They also express resentment that MBO has been forced on their departments by presidential edict in a manner that leaves implementation open to broad interpretation. Perhaps their most important reservation lies in their attitudes about the permanence of the programs. There was widespread feeling that the MBO will evaporate as soon as the brains and brawn behind the program in the Office of Management and Budget move on. In retrospect, their hesitation to embrace the MBO initiative seems justified. Thus far, President Carter has said nothing about MBO; he prefers instead to emphasize ZBB as a way of life.

Dr. Ryan identifies rapid turnover, statutory requirements, organizational rigidity, ineffective reward systems, and poor accountability as factors that retard MBO as an effective management tool in the federal sector. Of these factors, I consider rapid turnover of presidential appointees and the ineffective federal employee reward system as particularly critical.

Incentives in the private sector for solid, long-term organizational improvements are much more effective than is the appointment system in the federal sector. A new secretary or agency chief is an extension of the person who appoints him. In practical terms, his charter is to direct his organization in a way that most politically favors the position of his employer. The system thus becomes conducive to shortterm, politically motivated objectives rather than broadly based management improvements. And to compound this problem, the short tenure of appointees works against the establishment of innovative or controversial objectives.

Professor Richard Rose of the University of Strathclyde in Scotland has, for several years, conducted research on the relationship of the White House with various executive agencies. Professor Rose concludes that the prospects for strengthening MBO within the federal government are dim.⁵ He cites the statutory nature of objectives, division of power between the executive and the legislative branches, and lack of personal or political incentive to become concerned with management reform.

A second critical problem in successfully implementing MBO in the public sector is the problem of an ineffective reward system in relation to MBO programs. There are simply no incentive awards to encourage the MBO process to work. Rank and file public servants are more secure in their jobs than their counterparts in industry. Their pay will scarcely be affected by anything accomplished in terms of innovative management processes. They are content to do the best job of which they are capable and to follow the directions established by their supervisors. This is not necessarily wrong, and it certainly is not intended as criticism of public servants. Indeed, everyone has known a few public servants who have retired on the job and who would not be amenable to change of any sort, but these individuals are very much the exception. I refer primarily to those dedicated but compartmented public servants for whom MBO, organizational effectiveness, job enrichment, and the like hold little opportunity for personal reward.

Dr. Ryan draws some rather strong conclusions concerning MBO in the federal government.⁶ He suggests that:

• Federal participation in MBO has been overpraised and oversold;
• A wide gap exists between prescribed programs and programs actually in effect;
• Despite White House pressure, federal agencies simply have not seriously pursued MBO nor accepted it when implementation was directed; and
• Widespread acceptance of MBO at the federal level is not likely.

Leadership remains the essential skill of the tactical military commander.... there is no way to manage a ...battalion up a hill in a fire fight.⁷

One often hears the statement that the military is an institution rather than an occupation. Thus, military professionals may be justly proud of their unique sense of commitment, special traditions, wartime heroics, and unswerving loyalties to the mission and to superiors in the chain of command. However commendable these traditional attributes, they run counter to a program of management by objectives, particularly when they are added to the problems already discussed. The authoritarian personality, the formal nature of the rank structure, and the trend toward centralized control present barriers of such formidable proportions that they destroy any practical hope for a successful MBO program in the military environment.

The authoritarian personality. The cigar-chomping, desk-pounding colonel is alive and well! He retains command of broad functional areas; his subordinates generally admire him, but they are terrorized in his presence; he makes seat-of-the pants judgments, and he suboptimizes within the particular segment of the organization he serves. For example, if one asks a senior-level Marine about his MBO program, he will forcefully state that his charter is to fight and that he takes management into consideration only insofar as it conforms to his objective of achieving victory over the enemy.

This person has been described in kinder terms as one who is high in authoritarianism and low in the need for independence, who does not respond well to job enrichment or participation in the planning function, and who neither functions nor feels better in such an environment.⁸ I suggest that this individual represents the most serious threat to the implementation of MBO in the military. A brief scenario should illustrate this point: a military manager reluctantly agrees when he is ordered to cooperate in an MBO program. His immediate reaction, perhaps unconsciously, is to subvert the program. Having earned a reputation as a task-oriented authoritarian, he demands a fully cooperative team effort from his staff and at the same time admonishes them not to be concerned about disciplinary measures if they fail to meet stated objectives. Business continues as usual until the quarterly review of progress, which is conducted in a manner that has variously been described as the pink-slip technique and the brass-knuckles approach to management. Although this scenario may stretch the real world just a bit, such an atmosphere is prevalent in the modern military community. It results not in harmony but, rather, in what Harry Levinson describes as intense hostility, resentment, and distrust between managers and their subordinates.⁹

In addition to creating such a climate, our military manager frequently adopts a technique that outwardly supports MBO, but, in fact, is one in which he relinquishes none of his authority. By this ploy, he simply chooses a subordinate to assume the full administrative burden of the program. The manager's responsibilities thus take the form of admonitions to his staff to cooperate and periodic glances at the paperwork stemming from the program as he anticipates his own higher-level review. Either way, this common type of military manager ensures that the MBO program cannot succeed.

The formal structure. Closely related to the problem of achieving a proper MBO climate are the psychological effects of the formal military structure on the environment for participative management. Such an environment is incompatible with the godlike image encouraged in senior military officers, personality-centered effectiveness appraisals, formal decision briefings, and emphasis on physical standards and their effect on performance. One may argue that such phenomena have no relationship to the methodology used to manage an organization. I submit that they are so closely interwoven that they render any truly participative program unworkable. However tough the MBO philosophy, it remains totally different from traditional military philosophy. Primary concern with satisfying the manager in such an environment overshadows any unbiased action to formulate and accomplish commonly established objectives. I emphasize that I am neither criticizing the structure nor advocating change. I submit that we must stop deluding ourselves into thinking that we can engage in MBO while we reinforce the structure just described.

A third category of problems that militate against the successful adoption of MBO in a military environment relates to the trend away from autonomy and toward centralized control of even the most critical decisions. MBO implies that participative involvement will allow for immediate, on-the-spot decision-making to handle a given crisis, but such a methodology opposes the existing chain of command premise in the military. The growing library of regulations, codes, and similar directives has reduced the role of commanders at all levels. The effect of this trend on management participation at lower levels is to render such techniques a myth. Institutional objectives and procedures determined at the top leave little room for flexibility at the working levels.

The combined effects of the dangers common to most MBO programs plus the unique problems in the public sector and further complicated by the military style of management are indeed discouraging. The question is whether the results are worth the expenditure of measurable and unmeasurable resources. From the practical standpoint, there is a preponderance of evidence against such a program in the military. The few organizations that have achieved success in MBO probably had the least need for such techniques. The vast majority of DOD organizations with ongoing MBO programs are achieving far less than their resource outlays justify.

The message of this article is not complicated. With few exceptions, military managers must change their way of thinking and behaving for MBO to be a success. Such changes cannot be legislated. The military, therefore, must be content with letting MBO be used where it fits the personalities of the people involved and discontinue immediately the practice of forcing it on other, less receptive persons. Humanistic programs will never come about by top-level decree.

1. At the request of the survey team, I cannot specifically identify the group surveyed I recognize that the survey is not statistically valid because of the limited number of people surveyed. I feel, however, that the views expressed are representative of the population in question.

2. Management Review, October 1972, pp. 4-13.

3. The apparent success of the program at the Contract Management Division (CMD), Air Force Systems Command, might be considered one exception. At CMD, staying power appears to have overcome resistance, arid their effort is described in glowing terms in some circles.

4. Edward J. Ryan, Jr., "Federal Government MBO: Another Managerial Fad?" MSU Business Topics, Autumn 1976, pp. 35-43.

5. For an excellent treatment of MBO implementation in the federal government and current trends see Richard Rose, "Implementation and Evaporation: The Record of MBO," Public Administration Review, January/February 1977, pp. 64-71.

6. Ryan, pp. 42-43.

7. Andrew P. O'Meara, Jr., "Who Commands Today's Army? Managers or Leaders?" Army, August 1975, p. 16. Emphasis added.

8. Victor Vroom, Some Personality Determinants of the Effects of Participation (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1960).

9. Harry Levinson, "Management by Whose Objectives?" Harvard Business Review, vol. 48, no. 4, 1970, pp. 125-34.

Lieutenant Colonel Philip J. Perles, USA (M.S., George Washington University) is the Professor of Military Science at the University of California at Davis. Recent assignments have included Chief of Plans, U.S. Army Communications Command, and Deputy Commander, United States Army Signal Support Agency, Mediterranean. He has taught business administration courses at the University of Maryland and Cochise Community College, Douglas, Arizona. Colonel Perles is a graduate of U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and Air Command and Staff College.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor