Internal and external analysis later concluded that all these problems stemmed from shortfalls of organizational communication – devastating “interface failures,” or blinks. In his 1964 book The American Challenge, French journalist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber argued that Europe’s lag behind the United States in the Space Race was not a question of money but of “methods of organization above all . . . this is not a matter of ‘brain power’ in the traditional sense of the term, but of organization, education, and training.” On the other side of the pond, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concurred that Europe suffered from a managerial deficit: “The technological gap was misnamed.” It was a space age Tower of Babel: the countries’ inability to speak to one another obstructed their joint effort to reach the heavens.
NASA’s success illustrated a number of profound organizational insights. Most important, it showed that in a domain characterized by interdependence and unknowns, contextual understanding is key; whatever efficiency is gained through silos is outweighed by the costs of “interface failures.” It also proved that the cognitive “oneness” – the emergent intelligence – that we have studied in small teams can be achieved in larger organizations, if such organizations are willing to commit to the disciplined, deliberate sharing of information. This runs counter to the standard “need-to-know” mindset.
Bloomberg says, “I’ve always believed that management’s ability to influence work habits through edict is limited. Ordering something gets it done, perhaps. When you turn your back, though, employees tends to regress to the same old ways. Physical Plant, however, has a much more lasting impact . . . I issue proclamations telling everyone to work together, but it’s the lack of walls that really makes them do it.”
[…]
This is not just about symbolic egalitarianism. The cultivated chaos of the open office encourages interaction between employees distant from one another on the org chart. Putting himself in the middle of it kept Bloomberg’s finger on the pulse of the organization. “If you lock yourself in your office, I don’t think you can be a good executive,” he says. “It makes absolutely no sense to me.”
Stanley McChrystal quoting Michael Bloomberg, Team of Teams
