When Do Organizations Need to Change (Part I)? Coping with Incongruence*

1999 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (CCRTS), June 29 - July 1, 1999, U.S. Naval War College, Rhode IslandDifferent organizational structures are better matched to certain mission types than others (organizational congruence). Consequently, one way to achieve superior mission effectiveness is to switch between organizational structures when circumstances dictate. However, little is known about the variables that signal the need for such structural adaptation. To explore this issue, we used a model-based design process to create mission scenarios that were either matched (congruent) or mismatched (incongruent) with two organizational structures (Functional, Divisional). Results indicated that, as predicted on the basis of the coordination requirements imposed by the model-based design process, performance in the incongruent cases was characterized by increased communication, increased perceived workload, and degraded performance. Given these overall results, we explored these data further by analyzing communication patterns to identify how the organizations attempted to cope with the congruence problem. Our results indicated that the communication strategies employed in the face of incongruence depended on organizational structure/mission scenario pairings, suggesting that the specific signals of the need for structural adaptation will likely depend on context.The research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-02-C- 0233, under the direction of Gerald Malecki.The research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-02-C- 0233, under the direction of Gerald Malecki

Posture and the emergence of manual skills

In this paper, we examine how infants' natural manual and postural activities - what they prefer and do week by week -are related to developmental transitions in reaching skill and its neuromuscular control. Using a dense, longitudinal design, we tracked the manual and postural activities of four infants in a natural, free-play setting across the first year of life, and related these activities to two transitions in reaching as measured in a structured laboratory setting: the transition to reaching and the transition to stable reaching. Our data indicated that specific advances in the free-play setting preceded both transitions. Head and upper torso control, the ability to extend the arm and hand to a distant target, and the ability to touch and grasp objects placed nearby were all precursors to the onset of reaching, whereas sitting independently was associated with the transition to stable reaching. We also found important individual variability in when these 'components' were in place, indicating that it is the ensemble of components that is essential, not the order in which they develop or the timing of their contribution. These findings suggest that subsequent experimental manipulations should be planned with respect to infants' individual constellations of skills, rather than looking at only a single precursor to change

Adaptive Architectures for Command and Control: Toward An Empirical Evaluation of Organizational Congruence and Adaptation

Presentation to the 71st Military Operations Research Society Symposium. Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA. 10-12 June, 2003.How do teams cope with a misalignment between their organizational structures and mission requirements? Through a series of empirical and modeling efforts, our long-term goal is to understand the nature of organizational congruence, and to predict and measure the effects of a lack of congruence on the behaviors of organizations as they strive to adapt. In this paper, we present a series of lessons learned based on a pilot experiment in which we explored the performance of two organizations (functional and divisional) performing a single mission, which in this case, was not designed to favor a particular organization. The lessons learned here suggest a variety of empirical strategies to further our investigations, including measures of performance, rigorous attention to team and mission definitions, and precise planning of training structure. Our findings suggest that each of these factors has the potential to profoundly influence the results, reflecting the multiple factors that shape team performance.The research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-99-C-0255,under the direction of Gerald MaleckiThe research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-99-C-0255,under the direction of Gerald Maleck

When Do Organizations Need to Change (Part II)? Incongruence in Action*

1999 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (CCRTS), June 29 - July 1, 1999, U.S. Naval War College, Rhode IslandOrganizations that adapt to changes in their environment have a much better chance at achieving their mission and performing well. When organizations do adapt they usually alter their strategies, but rarely do they change their organizational structure even when that structure no longer fits the mission. To identify the conditions that will be salient enough to cause organizations to alter not only their strategies, but also their current structures, we used a model-based design process to create mission scenarios that were either matched (congruent) or mismatched (incongruent) with two organizational structures (functional, divisional). We then examined measures over time to identify ones that discriminated between congruent and incongruent conditions early in the mission scenarios. Several measures of communications, performance and workload appearedThe research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-02-C- 0233, under the direction of Gerald Malecki.The research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-02-C- 0233, under the direction of Gerald Malecki