Back to RMA Research Page
John W. Bodnar, CAPT, USNR (Ret) and Rebecca Dengler, 2LT, USMC
Naval War College Review, 49, Autumn, 93-107 (1996)
At every level the effectiveness of any organization is dependent on how well the individuals in the unit can cooperate in a rapidly changing environment dependent on the flow of information or commands among its individual parts. Therefore, the effectiveness of any organizational structure depends directly on the ability of the individuals composing the unit to communicate among themselves. We suggest that in the current Revolution in Military Affairs huge changes in organizational doctrine are emerging - where the military's ability to communicate on a global scale has provided a exceptional opportunity to enhance organizational effectiveness. Organizational structures, though drawn as they were fifty years ago, actually operate very differently in the Information Age. Accordingly, organizational operation and doctrine which was effective in the past for very small units can now be effective for an entire joint military. The emerging national military organization, which we term a command network, has the strengths of both a network and a hierarchy. An unexpected result of using the command network in increasingly larger organizations is that the responsibilities of the individuals and leaders have changed dramatically. We suggest new guidelines for leadership and doctrine in a command network that go beyond TQL and leadership by negation.