THE BLIND SPOT
Mission Command:
Lies, Damned Lies, and Metrics
Dr. Christopher R. Paparone and George L. Topic Jr.
By
I
n our past few columns, we discussed various aspects of mission
command, particularly in the
context of logistics. In this article we
will discuss the issue of overreliance
on metrics as a core tool for assessing
readiness and overall effectiveness
during operations.
Although we understand the importance of performance measurement, we believe logisticians need
to recognize that metrics are essentially control measures that may
conflict with key tenets of mission
command—particularly the need to
encourage disciplined initiative. The
complexities of shaping military operations coupled with the tenets of
mission command will continue to
make the quantitative management
style challenging.
The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, written by Henry Mintzberg in
1994, offers an extensive discussion
of the challenges of metrics, strategic
plans, and control in general. Here we
present a small sampling of his ideas
on the use of hard data. The content
below is paraphrased from the book
and some context is added.
Limited scope. Metrics are limited
in scope, lacking the qualitative richness of understanding that a leader
can gain by visiting operations and
talking to those who work in the processes. Monitoring large-scale and
complex supply chains through metrics may be akin to knowing what is
happening in a soccer game by looking only at the scoreboard.
Missing complexities. In a military
context, one of the most famous examples from history of the effect of
missing complexities was when, in
the 1960s, Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara tried to measure victory
4
Army Sustainment
in the Vietnam War, missing important complexities, ambiguities, and interpretations of what was happening.
Over-aggregated data. Strategic
control using macrolevel metrics is
a theory worth criticizing. From a
high-level headquarters perspective,
data is often so aggregated that it
becomes ineffective in helping to
make strategic decisions. Small innovative changes in logistics processes can have amplified effects
that cannot clearly register with
macrolevel metrics.
Data timeliness. Data timeliness is
a universal challenge; untimely data
constitutes historical information
that confounds dec