Corporate Disasters: Some Lessons for Transformation; Journal article

摘要

Applying the dynamic changes in corporate America is a feature of military transformation. Networked organizations, self-organizing systems, positive returns to scale, organizational agility, and sensory awareness are mentioned as characteristics of a revolution in military affairs. Each has a parallel in business, strengthening its attractiveness for the Pentagon. After all, companies did change in the 1990s, becoming less hierarchical and more networked, incorporating information technologies into daily operations, and using resources much more efficiently than the bureaucratic structures that went before. Yet little consideration has been given to what is now obvious, that many companies which were once models of revolutionary change have come to grief: Enron, WorldCom, Vivendi, AOL Time Warner, Qwest, Global Crossing, Sunbeam, British Telecom, Marconi, Tyco, and AT&T. The list goes on and raises basic questions because all these firms underwent radical transformation and were either total disasters (Enron) or badly damaged (AT&T). The problem is no longer getting people to embrace the need for change, but rather a more complicated one of managing change. If the Pentagon is going to borrow from business experience it must examine both sides, in particular how many corporate transformations once held up as examples have since proven to be catastrophes. Ignoring the disasters is as big a mistake as concluding that military transformation is not needed at all or that large organizations are impossible to change. Corporate disasters can inform military transformation. Without a thorough appreciation of the challenges of transformation, and unless all available experience is examined, the Armed Forces risk reliving lessons that corporate America has learned the hard way in recent years.