The Department of Defense as an Organization - Research Paper Example

and Organizing Function of Management (Department of Defense) 03 August (word count 295) Introduction General management involves four basic functions summed up in the world POLC: planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The planning function sets the stage for a later function of organizing by management through the relationships between people, resources and the hierarchy among these to attain its stated objectives. The control function relies quite heavily on the fourth function of leadership by which managers are able to motivate people to work for the attainment of organizational goals. (Fox 4). This paper discusses on the organizing functions of a big organization which is the Department of Defense (DoD) in terms of its human resources, knowledge and technology. It is a good measure of the organization's ability when viewed in this perspective especially at a time when there is a dearth of resources available due to budgetary constraints. Efficiency and effectiveness are good criteria by which to judge the leadership of the DoD in these areas. Discussion It is no small challenge to manage an organization the size of the DoD which is also charged with keeping the security of the nation as well as its allies internationally through the many defense pacts it signs with them. The Department of Defense controls the United States armed force services (army, air force, navy and marines) through its chairman, the joint chiefs of staff. The designated DoD secretary is the chief policy adviser to the president in terms of execution of approved policies of the administration. In the exercise of its mandated duties or responsibilities, the DoD must likewise make full wise of the resources made available to it to carry out its mission of protecting the country and deterrence of war (DoD 1). Human Resources – the DoD is the oldest and also the largest of all departments in the United States government. With some 1.4 million men and women in uniform (active duty and another 1.1 million people in the National Guard and Reserve forces), it also manages the pension, retirement and other benefits for the estimated 2 million retirees and their families. In addition, the DoD also employs approximately 718,000 civilian personnel. This paper is more concerned and focuses on how the DoD exercises its organizing function with these civilians. The DoD manages and organizes its large civilian employees primarily through its Civilian Personnel Management Service or CPMS. It is considered as the “center of excellence” for its civilian human resources to create and sustain a diverse, high-performing and flexible civilian workforce, a model of excellence in the entire Federal government bureaucracy (CPMS 1). The CPMS is charged with the overall strategic policy planning and oversight of the department's civilian employees' plans, policies, and programs of its employees worldwide. It is headed by the deputy assistant secretary for civilian personnel policy. Its mandate includes talent acquisition, development and sustainment of excellence through its various programs such as strategic workforce planning, career and succession planning, leader development and senior executive leadership programs including the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce (CEW). In line with cost-cutting initiatives, DoD has implemented its Emergency-Essential policy classifying the retention of employees in civilian positions only when that position has been designated as E-E before crisis situations and secondly, if the civilian position is deemed necessary to support combat-essential systems. This allows for flexibility to remove civilian employees to reduce payroll but still maintain effectiveness in the face of continued threats (AS-DOD 1). The second important direction the DoD has taken is in joining the outsourcing bandwagon by hiring contractors and sub-contractors to perform jobs previously done by the military personnel; this policy covers foreign host-country and third-country nationals. Knowledge – knowing how the enemy works is a big advantage during ancient times and even more so today when information gets processed and distributed in a very fast way. It is therefore not surprising that even the Department of Defense has taken to the Internet to try to gain an advantage against real and perceived enemies. One of the more intriguing ways it is doing is the study of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Its newest program is a study on how memes work and spread (viral networking) and this has secured a funding to the tune of about $42 million but is still in the initial stages, soliciting research proposals. Its four objectives are detect, classify, measure and track the formation and spread of ideas (memes) in particular the purposeful deceptive messaging and misinformation (psychological warfare), recognize persuasive campaigns and influence operations across these social media networks, identify the participants with their intents and finally, adopt countermeasures against detected enemy operations (Gayomali 1), such as media-savvy terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. This latest program to come out of the Pentagon minds is called as the Social Media in Strategic Communications (SMISC) and is funded under its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This may seem like something out of science fiction but the goals are to control and influence the formation and direction of information; moreover, it seeks to utilize tools for mass mobilization such as social networks to develop a new military science. This new initiative is quite similar to the data-mining technology and software used by FBI in finding certain patterns or “background noise” in detecting any potential terrorist activities by monitoring their communications worldwide. This is an analytic process involving math and statistics which is a larger part of the military intelligence gathering process (McCue 47) that tries to anticipate the moves and intents of an enemy based on his communications sent. This type of social behavior analysis has been popularized years earlier by the author Mr. Malcolm Gladwell in which he postulated the idea of a tipping point as epidemics (Brothers Judd 1). Technology – the DoD is not averse to even the most outlandish ideas in which there is a potential military application. The department often ventures into realms of pure science fiction today but which will eventually be applicable and practicable through advances in both scientific research and manufacturing technology. The way the DoD pursues these ideas are a lesson in persistence, large budgets, wasteful spending but sometimes huge successes which can render an enemy's defenses useless or turn a tiny tactical advantage into a strategic win. A few examples are the civilian applications of military technologies which today most people take for granted. Foremost are the space program (an offshoot of military rocketry), the global positioning system (from the Strategic Defense Initiative or called as a “Star Wars program”) and course, the Internet or World Wide Web (rising out of the need to maintain the redundant communication systems necessary in the event of a war) to launch nuclear missiles. Another example which the Pentagon (DoD) is still pursuing vigorously but which has yielded tremendous preliminary positive results is the drone program or pilot-less plane. This relatively-new technology has turned the war against international terrorism by allowing the military and civilian intelligence communities to eavesdrop on an enemy's communication and strike whenever and wherever the enemy is found without risking American lives. Today's drone technology is still considerably primitive in terms of size, capabilities and usefulness as scientists predict military drones can miniaturized some more to approach the size of insects such as dragonflies to avoid detection but still be able to deliver on its mission's goals (such as taking photographs of enemy hiding positions); unmanned aerial vehicles are proven to have degraded the Al Qaeda significantly. The newly-developed “robot hummingbird” can hover on windows to get a glimpse inside enemy quarters without detection (Popular Science 1). However, DoD gave away most of these technologies to the civilian sector for commercial use without any financial compensation at all, most of these projects developed at huge costs. Works Cited Assistant Secretary, Department of Defense. Force Management and Personnel: Emergency-Essential (E-E) DoD U.S. Citizen Civilian Employees. 10 Apr. 1992. Web. 02 Aug 2011. BrothersJudd.com The Tipping Point: How Little Things can Make a Big Difference. 01 May 2006. Web. 03 Aug. 2011. Civilian Personnel Management Service (CPMS). Department of Defense: CPMS Mission, Vision and Values. 2011. Web. 01 Aug. 2011. Department of Defense (DOD). Mission: About the Department of Defense (DoD). 2011. Web. 02 Aug. 2011. Fox, William M. The Management Process: An Integrated Functional Approach. Charlotte, NC, USA: Information Age Publishing, 2009. Print. Gayomali, Chris. “Defense Department Initiative Seeks to Analyze Social Media Patterns.” Time Magazine. 02 Aug 2011. Web. 03 Aug. 2011. McCue, Colleen. Data Mining and Predictive Analysis: Intelligence Gathering and Crime Analysis. Burlington, MA, USA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007. Print. Popular Science. “Military Tech: Robot Hummingbird Spy Drone Flies for Eight Minutes, Spies on Bad Guys.” Fox News.com 18 Feb 2011. Web. 03 Aug. 2011. Read More