Tuesday, February 17, 2015

From July 2013 - We've come a long way - Combining N2 and N6


4 comments:

Dave McDonald said...

It was not a good idea then, and now in hindsight, it has proven to be rather damaging to the Navy's capabilities. Excessive consolidation and centralization almost always leads to the "thing" being too big for one staff bureaucracy to handle well. This N2<->N6 merger, and some of the main "muscle movements" associated with it and derivative of it, is a bit of a poster-child for that well-understood phenomenon. Jack Dorsett had the ear of the CNO at the time, and made something "big" happen (as he was prone to do), and he was lauded for it, but then "escaped" quickly out the back door to make big bucks in industry. Everyone else has been holding the bag ever since, putting up a good "fight" to try to make it work. But you know the old adage about lipstick on a pig. Eventually the Navy will have to go figure this all out again, and will smartly dis-aggregate core warfighting and support functions again, and make sure there is operational, technical, policy and business rigor and precision applied to each area, without bias or some kind of artificial and forced (balanced) "holistic" approach being applied. That, and I think we're well into the process of re-learning some very old wisdom that deep technical and operational expertise, honed over a career uniquely focused in a manageable set of fully-interrelated disciplines, is where you get world-class leadership and performance from. I'm sure there will be other opinions posted. This is mine; and I'm close enough to all of it to have legitimate opinions.

Mike Lambert said...

Thanks Dave for owning your opinion. Many in our community don't have that willingness.

Dave McDonald said...

Mike,

Of course. I shall now stand by for my public beating. Hope you are will Sir.

V/r, Dave

Anonymous said...

When one combines secrecy with its antithesis, one gets a dysfunctional myth. Played this game at the CMS level. It took just a few men to break it. I got involved when the Walker's broke it. Others marvel at Snowden breaking it.

N2 has about as much to do with N6 as elephants have to do with ballet.