Mad Men, Hermits Heretics Dreamers, Rebels, and Skeptics
The United States military has a rigid structure and hierarchy to create order during the chaos of war. In the corporate world, many large organizations have developed similar hierarchy and structure to create order out of the chaos that comes with running large organizations. One pitfall to this structure is a decrease in creativity, flexibility, and reaction time. Many leaders of large organization want the creativity and adaptability in order to keep pace with the speed of today’s industries but need order to manage the vast operations. The conundrum is that people high in conscientiousness and orderliness are generally low in creativity; these are generally your leaders and, in an attempt to create order, unintentionally create borders, silos and conformity resulting in less creativity. Leaders must be able to walk the line between order and chaos so the organization can be fiscally competitive while maintaining its creativity and adaptability. One way is to embrace and protect the non-conformists in their organizations that challenge norms and make things uncomfortable.
I once heard the British actor/comedian, Stephen Fry, say, “I deeply and instinctively distrust conformity and orthodoxy. Progress is not achieved by preachers and guardians of morality but by mad men, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.” How are you as a leader protecting dissenting and challenging views? If you surround yourself with people that have the same beliefs your organization will fall victim to confirmation bias; you intentionally or unintentionally tend to interpret, favor, or recall information in a way that confirms or supports your beliefs or values. Diversity, inclusion, and equity are important discussions today and mostly focus on gender, race, and sexual orientation. It is important to consider your influence as a leader and not creating conformity within your team, especially if you have gone out of your way to create diversity. Stifling diverse thinking will lead your organization into inflexible and unimaginative operations. In today’s fast pace environment that will ensure doom for the organization.
We started this discussion identifying that the military has a rigid and hierarchical structure which is designed to help operate in the complete chaos of war. You might argue that the military structure works very well as the United States has the most advanced and competent force in the world so that should work for all large organizations. There are still non-conformists in the military though and this was not lost of General Jim Mattis when he was the Commander of Central Command and overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He stated, “Leaders must shelter those challenging non-conformists and mavericks who make institutions uncomfortable.” Mattis grew up as a Marine which already had a culture of improvise, adapt, and overcome. The Army had a more challenging shift from the massive success of the Gulf War and shifting from major force on force to counter-insurgency operations. If you are not familiar with the uncommonly open dissention amongst the ranks during this time Google The Petraeus Doctrine. Dissention and disagreement make things uncomfortable but will make the organization better if embraced and addressed by the leadership. General Martin Dempsey as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says it best, “disagreement is not disloyalty.”
“The tragedy of our generation is those who feel certainty are stupid and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.” Stephen Fry
