… there seems to be an inherent conflict between line and staff activities. In the first place, their functions largely overlap. The only way “doing” can be distinguished from planning is to say that doing never involves discretion. In the second place, the staff must be able to justify its existence. But when it gets involved in “doing,” the line challenges this as undermining its authority. To say that a staff does not exercise authority is a difficult proposition to defend.
If the operational officers never accept staff recommendations, staff existence is not justified. When the executive follows staff advice, the legal authority is his, but the judgment is that of the staff. As a matter of fact, this is the very justification of a staff. It is expected to influence the decisions of the executive and the organization. Hence, the staff always exercises authority in the sense of providing judgments for the executives. And when the staff creates counterparts at lower echelons, through which it enforces these judgments, it encroaches upon the authority (legal or otherwise) of lower echelon executives. Since few executives are willing to accept this amicably, the system provides built-in resistance to all new plans, regardless of their merits, for each one is accompanied by a potential threat to the prerogatives of lower echelon executives. This does not bridge the gap between policy and operations; it walls them off from one another. The myth that staffs exercise no authority, thus is necessary and serves a useful purpose. It disguises the contradiction and preserves the principle that each subordinate reports to only one superior.
Even though the general staff system frequently express the sincerest affirmations that operations must be decentralized, the forces in the system pull toward centralization. A staff unit, such as a personnel section, is expected to bring its special competence to bear throughout all phases of an organization’s activities. Its job is to see that sound personnel premises are used by operators in making decisions. This involves developing sound rules, communicating them, and seeing that they are enforced. This is usually done by issuing a regulation, and it is the job of the personnel office to insure uniform compliance….
This overlooks the fact that, as they grow in size, staff units become complex organizations. They specialize and set up a hierarchy within the hierarchy…
The very logic and justification for staffs can be used to criticize them. The value of a staff rests on the claim that a small group, close to the executive, without any assigned interest of its own, is more likely to identify with over-all purpose and the responsibilities of the executive than are line departments with their narrower responsibility, bureaucratic purposes, and parochial attitudes. If this is so, the effectiveness of a staff should be inversely proportional to its size and degree of internal specialization. If it is large, it will have its own problem of internal bureaucratic control. If it is overspecialized, it loses its over-all viewpoint. A quick look at any General Staff dissipates any thought that the systems meets its own requirements for effectiveness. If, then, staffs are large and specialized, exercise control, and give commands, the real price of a staff is diffusion and confusion of authority and responsibility – a price not frequently found among explanations and defenses of hierarchical general staff system.
That was from the excellent book, The Management of Defense: Organization and Control of the U.S. Armed Services by John. C. Ries, The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, MD. 1964.
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