Commanding Change: War Winning Strategies for Organizational Change

Military Review,  May-June, 2003  by Mark L Shepard

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Murrays, Davies, Praeger, Westport, CT, 2001, $62.50

The dynamics that force organizational change in the civilian sector are normally judged on the ability to gain profits. Military units that encounter the dynamics of change on the battlefield can be trapped because of the inability to divert from outmoded doctrine or obsolete weapons systems. Murray Davies tackles the problem of military organizational change in Commanding Change: War Winning Military Strategies for Organizational Change. He discusses what motivates military organizations to seek alternatives to meet new doctrinal and technological threats by comparing and contrasting similar changes in corporations. Corporations seek change to increase profits. The military seeks change to save lives and to achieve victory.

Davies analyzes several historical case studies to find organizational commonalities to each change, discussing each evolution or revolution of military affairs that leads to what he calls Military Change Management Strategy (MCMS). The MCMS forms the baseline for military organizational change, defeating the distracters that would adversely affect the goal of modernizing weapons or doctrine. The MCMS then leads to a Military Change Management Plan (MCMP), and Davies sees it as one under constant evolution as information and technology continue to develop. However, his MCMP principles can be used as a guide to effect change working within the dimensions of human behavior and time. The final dynamic of leadership concludes his book, for he recognizes that without leadership, any change to an organization is fruitless.

Davies writes well on the evolution and revolution of military affairs and how they relate to organizational change However, he uses a weak argument' when he tries to analogize military and civilian sector change. His chapter "Military Versus Civilian Change" asserts only that in the civilian sector, change is brought about by a decline in profits. He does not provide any concrete historical examples of change in the civilian sector as he does in the military profession that would strengthen his argument. Despite this weakness, Davies provides a good treatment of military organizational change, and he discusses how to surmount those forces that detract from alternatives in how we will fight on future battlefields.

MAJ Mark L Shepard, USA, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

COPYRIGHT 2003 U.S. Army CGSC
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