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lieved in the Congress that once a program has entered full scale development, it is virtually impossible to make any meaningful changes. Consolidating R&D accounts may help, but there would be nothing to stop the Congress from going into the accounts and making changes in individual projects, as is currently the case.

• Option 4C-discipline by congressional leaders

This is judged to be the only truly effective solution to the micromanagement program. Micro-management occurs because House and Senate leaders permit it to occur. These leaders increasingly accept amendments on the floor of the House and the Senate to avoid holding up passage of the defense authorization bill. Accepting these amendments not only contributes to micro-management but fosters additional efforts in subsequent years as well. Staffs feed this pattern of micro-management because it suits the interests of their employers. If congressional leaders placed primary emphasis on avoiding micro-management, the staffs would follow suit. Organizations do well those things the boss checks.

There is no apparent disadvantage to this option. The primary problem with it is its difficulty in implementation. As noted above, the Congress as an organization operates on the basis of compromise and conciliation. Fighting micro-management requires confrontation. Since most instances of micro-management do involve a genuine problem (the question is not that a problem exists but whether the Congress, as opposed to the Military Departments or DoD, ought to be dwelling on the problem), congressional leaders are placed in the difficult position of arguing against an amendment to deal with a problem.

5. OPTIONS FOR DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM OF INSUFFICIENT REVIEW OF PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS IN DOD

• Option 5A-reduce the number of presidential appointive positions

This option treats the symptoms and not the cause.

• Option 5B-vest powers of appointment in persons other than the President

The purpose of this option is to remove senior management positions from political pressures by giving the power to make those appointments to those individuals who will be judged for the success they have in accomplishing their missions. It is believed that those individuals who are going to spend the next four years in DoD and will be judged by their success in managing the Department will want to place a greater emphasis on defense management credentials than nominations made by the White House which naturally reflect a significant political dimension.

On the negative side, this option would lessen powers of the President that have been exercised for a considerable period of time. Also, a decision to vest powers of appointment in individuals other than the President would require the concurrence of the House of Representatives and the signature of the President or a subsequent vote to override his veto. This may be difficult to achieve.

• Option 5C-establish more rigorous standards for congressional approval of presidential appointees

This alternative is at once the best and the most difficult one to implement because it is essentially political in nature. Presidential appointments represent presidential commitments, and the President's party is almost always obligated to support the President. Alternatively, a decision to reject a candidate's appointment on a bipartisan basis could have a significant impact in encouraging the President to seek more competent candidates to avoid the embarrassment of a second rejection.

G. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This section presents the conclusions and recommendations of this chapter concerning congressional review and oversight. The conclusions result from the analyses presented in Section C (Key Trends) and Section D (Problem Areas and Causes). The recommendations are based on the more promising options evaluated in Section F (Evaluation of Alternative Solutions).

Conclusions

1. Efforts to reorganize the Department of Defense will prove imperfect unless accompanied by changes in congressional review and oversight of the defense program.

2. The congressional budget process dominates the legislative agenda and has distorted defense oversight.

Recommendations

3. Annual congressional 3A. Adopt a biennial budget procreview cycles of DoD's ess.

budget submission have

become counterproductive 3B. Establish milestone authorizaand inhibit coherent over- tions for major acquisitions. sight.

Conclusions

4. The Congress has trivialized its responsibilities through micro-management of DoD; the Congress no longer focuses on fundamental issues of strategy and national priority.

5. The Congress reinforces the flaws inherent in current DoD organizations and procedures; the Congress dwells on material inputs, not mission outputs.

Recommendations

4A. Have congressional leaders place increased emphasis on avoiding micro-management of DoD.

4B. Consolidate individual line items into force "packages" andauthorize packages.

(A biennial budget process, while not solving micro-management directly, would help shift the fundamental focus of the Congress by deemphasizing annual budgets and reemphasizing traditional oversight.)

5A. Complete the evolution to mission-oriented subcommittees.

5B. Structure hearings along lines of defense missions, not appropriation accounts.

5C. Modify budget justification material to reflect defense missions.

CHAPTER 10

OVERVIEW ANALYSIS

A. INTRODUCTION

Chapters 2 through 9 of this study address distinct concepts, organizations, and decision-making procedures within or affecting the Department of Defense. This chapter seeks to combine these separate efforts to provide an overview analysis of DoD and its problems. The extensive interdependence of the topics studied in the eight preceding chapters requires an integrated analysis; it is not possible to formulate effective solutions for any one topic in isolation. As Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch have noted:

...an organization is not a mechanical system in which one part can be changed without a concomitant effect on the other parts. Rather, an organizational system shares with biological systems the property of an intense interdependence of parts such that a change in one part has an impact on the others. (Developing Organizations: Diagnosis and Action, pages 9 and 10)

The subsequent section of this chapter aggregates the numerous problem areas identified in Chapters 3 through 9 to identify ten major problem themes that are undermining the performance of the Department of Defense. These problem themes provide useful insights into broad organizational and procedural deficiencies in DoD. The third section seeks to place the current problems of DoD in a historical context. The final section presents a set of conclusions and recommendations based on the overview analysis contained in this chapter. Appendix B of this chapter presents a brief summary of the views of 15 outside experts who evaluated this staff study. These views were presented during meetings of these experts with nine Members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services held at Fort A. P. Hill, Virginia, on October 5 and 6, 1985.

B. MAJOR PROBLEM THEMES IN DOD ORGANIZATION AND

PROCEDURES

Chapters 3 through 9 identify 34 organizational or procedural problem areas within or affecting the Department of Defense. From these numerous problem areas, ten major problem themes emerge. The first six problem themes, while they have counterparts in other organizations, are specifically oriented to the uniqueness of the Department of Defense. The next three problem themes are general management problems that plague many organizations, both private and public. The last problem theme -involving the insufficient power and influence of the Secretary of Defense -draws upon the nine problem themes that precede it. The specific problem areas from Chapters 3 through 9 upon which each theme is based are presented in Appendix A of this chapter.

1. IMBALANCE OF EMPHASIS ON FUNCTIONS VERSUS MISSIONS

In discussing new concepts in organizational design, Peter F. Drucker has written:

...We realize now that structure is a means for attaining the objectives and goals of an institution. And if a structure is to be effective and sound, we must start with objectives and strategy.

...Strategy-that is, the answer to the questions: "What is our business? What should it be? What will it be?" -determines the purpose of structure. It thereby determines the key tasks or activities in a given business or service institution. Effective structure is the design that makes these key activities function and produce results. In turn the key activities are the load-bearing elements of a functioning structure. Organization design is, or should be, primarily concerned with the key activities; other purposes are secondary. ("New Templates for Today's Organizations", Harvard Business Review On Management, page 633)

The organization of the Washington Headquarters of the Department of Defense, especially the Office of the Secretary of Defense, violates this approach. Objectives and strategy, or missions, are not sufficiently reflected in any of the headquarters organizations. The organizational structures of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Military Departments are focused excessively on functional areas, such as manpower, research and development, and policy. Within the functional offices of these organizations, there may be officials who worry about missions, but they do so only from the narrow perspective of a single function.

The functional structure across the Washington Headquarters of DoD leads to a focus on business management and not on major missions and their objectives and strategy. There are benefits to this business management orientation. DoD can integrate on a functional basis across major organizational lines. For example, manpower planning can be done on a department-wide basis. Yet, business management efforts are, in Drucker's terms, "secondary" activities. While these secondary activities continue to be needed in DoD, they have come to assume the role of key activities by displacing a sharp focus on mission needs.

Lost in the functional diffusion of the current DoD organization is a focus on the central strategic objectives and missions of DoD. (As identified in this study, DoD has six major missions: nuclear deterrence, NATO defense, defense of East Asia, defense of Southwest Asia, maritime superiority, and power projection superiority.) This focus must be provided in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The deficiencies of OSD's functional structure are well documented in Chapter 3 and will not be repeated here. However, Peter F. Drucker's summation of the problems of a functional structure puts the issue into perspective:

...The functional principle [of organizational design], for instance, has great clarity and high economy, and it makes it easy to understand one's own task. But even in the small busi

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