Sunday, September 29, 2019
Team Structure
I have participated in many teams in my life. Among them, a team structure in military was successful in efficiency-wise. From 2016 to 2018, I worked at 35th flight group at Seoul Airbase as air force. My job was to deliver some confidential documents, manage facilities, and anything that is needed. Even though each member of the team does not tend to freely communicate with each other, its hierarchy and division of work take actions to a variety of situation very efficiently. Therefore, I would say that this organization had been successful for its own purpose.
I was a part of an office of the airbase management department and it is divided into four different divisions; Operational division, facility management division, ground assistance division, and hospitality division. Each division comprised of a leader and 5-10 members. Of course, members are also followed by air force rank. These four divisions collaborated to conduct the confidential mission. The highest team's authority was the captain of the airbase management department who is above four divisions and the highest rank. The captain ("One boss hierarchy") commands any important circumstances through collecting leaders of each division. In this way, leaders are informed about missions and circumstances to prepare for any kind of work by commanding members of the division. Communication are very well performed (or even strictly performed) because the work does not follow the regular work time such as(9AM - 5PM). It is flexible to the missions from upper department, so working time really varies, which means that members are always putting them selves to be open to communication. (Keeping eyes on phones regularly, no silence mode, and so on). Because of specialty of military, the lower ranker has to obey and follow higher ranker. Mutiny is strictly prohibited. Therefore, relatively stronger hierarchy team can be built compared to another team outside of military.
According to the Katzenbach and Smith, this team has performed well as an organization. proper amount of members (5-10) are involved in each division, which is small enough to control. In addition to this, the majority of members of the department have worked for each job at for many years, which means expertise and specialization are proven by years of experience. Plus, members are committed to a common purpose half reluctantly by speciality of military. Therefore, this team is equipped with distinguishing features of high function team.
In the case of welcoming VIP mission as an example, the captain gathered each leader of the division to briefly discuss about the mission at least a week before. Each leader reports facilities, equipments, and members that are available to the mission. The captain recognized any special things to know at this moment. The captain reports about our department condition and situation to the upper department and other department which co-work with. And each leader of the division commands to their members about any needs and things to prepare before the day. For example, members of managing facility division check the temperature and electricity of welcoming buildings, gardening condition, cleaning condition, and possible emergency assistance. 48 hours before, all divisions rehearsal the welcoming mission for completely preparing for the day. Then, each leaders report any special notes to the captain and captain reflects or confirms them for the last time.
As we looked into the example, this team works with optimal size of people, well performed communication and complementary skills. The manageable size let the team reacts rapid to any circumstance and members with years of experience contributes a lot to stability of the team.
In conclusion, my organization experience, the airbase management department at 35th flight group performs well, equipped with many advantages such as size, communication, skills as an organization with one boss hierarchy.
*I excluded any confidential information about military on this blog.
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As you have actually military experience, I was hoping you might work in the expression - boots on the ground - somewhere in your post. (I'm joking here, but sometimes it helps to recognize the tiny bit of jargon that our class has appropriated from the military.)
ReplyDeleteActually, the way you wrote this post it sounds like most of the decision making was done by Command and Control, though it seemed appropriate to me, because odd circumstances didn't crop up in your post. I do wonder if you were ever involved in a situation that your superiors didn't anticipate in advance and, if so , how that played out.
I'm guessing that all of your fellow soldiers treated their commitment very seriously. So the goofing off (we'll call it shirking) that might manifest in other work that doesn't fully engage the person wasn't present in your experience. The discipline of the military deterred that entirely.
But there is a different issue to consider that I'd like to ask about. This is whether in some cases a creative solution was needed because the standard solution didn't match the circumstances. My mental model is that the strict discipline of the military blocks the creative solution. I wonder if you ever experienced anything like that.
Thank you for the comment.
DeleteYes. There were a great deal of situations that were not anticipated in advance.
In these cases, the captain gathers each leader of the divisions and discusses about plan-B. This decision has to be wise and quick, because many resources are involved to the missions. Also, the captain needs to report the result of discussion and compromise with other departments.
In deed, creative solutions are needed even though atmosphere is not very welcoming to them in military. However, military strives to hold many events to encourage soldiers creativity. (e.g. idea contests for military facility, book review contest, etc.)
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