Does LLNS have a "command and control" leadership style and if so, does it complement or detract from its NNSA mission objective effectiveness compared to other leadership approaches?
"How Command and Control as a Change Leadership Style Causes Transformational Change Efforts to Fail"
http://changeleadersnetwork.com/free-resources/how-command-and-control-as-a-change-leadership-style-causes-transformational-change-efforts-to-fail
28 comments:
LLNS definitely has a command and control management style but without the constraints or real time risks associated with the article's continuous marketplace model. Other than the "isolated from their environment" paragraph, this puts LLNS in a category not well defined in the article.
What management style is best for LLNS employees if there is a best one?
Anonymous Anonymous said...
What management style is best for LLNS employees if there is a best one?
6/28/2019 4:36 PM
It depends on the desired results. If the desired results are excellence in Science Based Stockpile Stewardship of the national nuclear deterrent, then a technocracy similar to that of world-class universities is clearly the best. If full employment of voting populace is the desired result, then something else is best.
I think former Associate Deputy Energy Secretary Bruce Held might agree with the value of a technocracy model over the current LLNS or past LANS contractor model. In a 2014 article Bruce Held said, "What motivates the people at the national laboratories is excellence in science and bringing excellence in science to the interest of the nation … They're not motivated by profit incentives".
The article went on to say, "Associate Deputy Energy Secretary Bruce Held has been questioning whether what he describes as "large fees" currently paid to manage the weapons sites are the best way to motivate all players involved... Performance at the national labs might actually improve, the former CIA officer says, if less money went toward the fees meant to motivate the management companies that run the sites, and if more funds went directly to the scientific work that the facilities conduct." Bruce Held also wanted to move to a "public interest model" which arguably is a model he believed would be in better alignment with DOE/NNSA mission objectives.
As reported by the ExhangeMonitor, LANL Director Thomas Mason said, "...I think, the most important element: is making sure that we do everything we can to have the team function as a team without being pulled apart by conflicting corporate allegiances". "Conflicting corporate allegiances" which I assume was in reference to LANS, sounds like LANS was not a technocracy driven contractor.
Which management style is best for LLNS employees? An unintentional trick question perhaps. There is no best management style for LLNS employees if it conflicts or diminishes with what is best for the LLNS LLC. In terms of what is best for employees that work at LLNL, I'm not sure we can get there from here until a LANS to Triad like transition occurs that is carefully and thoughtfully constructed.
"Nuclear Weapons Complex Reform Could Mean Pay Cut For Contractors"
https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/nuclear-weapons-complex-reform-could-mean-pay-cut-contractors/
Bruce was right. Nuclear weapons should never be a for-profit enterprise. Only the DOE/NNSA bureaucrats could screw this situation up as badly as present circumstances indicate.
The for-profit LLC model is, above all else, about removing responsibility for bad decisions from anyone involved. It’s truly an ingenious invention.
The NNSA could bombard the labs with a continuous stream of draconian and contradictory rules that disincentivized work and drove away top performers. It could put in charge an incompetent team of upper managers. It could neglect the infrastructure and misallocate capital investment. Didn’t matter, they could just say, “Look, we are paying the LLC this enormous fee. It’s all their responsibility and their fault.”
You might think the LLC would complain about being set up in this way. Not at all. They were more than happy to pocket $70M/yr for ten years. When the stuff finally hit the fan, they simply walked away from it. No person was held responsible, they are all retired or transferred to other sinecures. And, incidentally, so are the folks at the NNSA who devised the whole scheme.
Who’s responsible for the collapse of the science capability during the decade of LANS? What about the WIPP fiasco? Huge cost overruns? Nobody can tell. It’s all this vague talk about “LANS”, “Bechtel”, “the for-profit model”, not the directors or the NNSA administrators of the time. Not the incompetent division leaders or egomaniac ALDs.
The system was corrosive. Bastards were let run unchecked at every level of management, under the slogan that this was the new corporate world and the workers were at the mercy of the management and expendable. It will take a long time, measured in decades to fix the damage.
7/01/2019 5:47 PM and 7/02/2019 12:04 PM either miss the point entirely or weren't around for the festivities. DOE/NNSA believed (rightly at the time, IMO) that they had to comply with Senator Pete's demand for privatization. It was misguided and the worst thing he ever did for the Labs, after decades of good things. He screwed up, and his reputation and power in the Senate made it stick.
12:04pm
Some very good points. I agree that the NNSA goal Is to make accountability unclear or push it to the LLC which will be ultimately dissolved. I think the deeper purpose is to push decisions to the LLC that the NNSA can’t politically swallow like eliminating pensions, decreasing benefits and frankly firing large portions of the Employees and significantly decreasing the scope. While not obvious at the labs, you only need look to the production facilities at SRS, Oak Ridge, etc.
I don’t agree that the LLCs are only driven by money but I am no fool to believe it is not a large part of the equation. Look to the award fee criteria and how poorly they are written. (Also due to NNSA incompetence). Over the decades I have seen well written criteria and poorly written criteria and the LANS criteria was CLEARLY WRITTEN to drive production, not quality, and that’s what they got.
7/02/2019 12:04 PM
Excuse me, but it was not managers, private companies, LLC, for profit anything or NNSA which caused the problems at the labs. It was the arrogant scientists that thought they where above it all. Look at the history of problems, stolen Mustangs, lost disks, fires, drugs, WIPP, spies, waste, fraud, theft, arrogance...all of which come from one thing...culture. Science made this culture hence we had LANS come in and attempt to clean up the mess, yet in the end they even lost. It is so sad, so sick, I just cannot stand it nor the post of from people like 12.04 PM. I hope LLNS wins and stays as long as possible chew some science asses and get rid of that dam culture. AND I DON'T want to hear another post about me being bitter. I am just disappointed that LANS could not beat the culture in submission.
6:41. Bitter much?
Science culture is not the problem at LANL. It is the Operations side. Anyone who has worked there will quickly figure that out. The operations culture is out of control and misaligned to the hazards they deal with very corrupt, very dangerous. On the other hand, the science and weapons engineering culture is pretty darn good. Thoughtful, civil, and of sound process.
"The operations culture is out of control and misaligned to the hazards they deal with very corrupt, very dangerous. On the other hand, the science and weapons engineering culture is pretty darn good. Thoughtful, civil, and of sound process.
7/04/2019 5:47 AM"
I agree but the problem is that politically speaking there is nothing that can be done with operations at LANL. New Mexico would never allow it. Problems will continue at LANL and the only safe thing that can be blamed will be science and engineering.
Many, many of my colleagues, including myself, got fed up with the situation at LANL and have opted for lucrative positions at Silicon Valley firms. Atherton, where I currently reside, is literally filled with former Los Alamos scientists and engineers. Many, many who I also know personally and were in my division have taken full tenured professor positions at top notch universities, Many, many others in my division also have gone to ORNL, Brookhaven, Fermilab, CERN, etc. You don’t have to put up with a private contractor who manages your lab from a remote location and you never see. You can just leave.
7/04/2019 3:39 PM
This really boils my blood. How is it that all these people can get jobs outside of LANL?
9:08 Thanks for, “draining the swamp”, Pete.
9:28am
Don’t think that the operations can’t go to a new Y-12 type facility at Oak ridge or SRS. It can and will if LANL keeps on the path they are on. The politicians in NM are weak compared to say SC especially in the currently political environment. SRS is having its own issues right now but that could shift back. They were pretty strong not but 5-10 years ago but what has always been consistent is they want new missions and are supported by their politicians to get them.
5:42 Are you suggesting that Udahl and Ben Ray aren’t up to snuff? Who knew?
I'll bet his birth certificate says "Ben Ray" instead of "Benjamin Raymond." Use of diminutives or nicknames as actual given names is rampant in NM. Sort of a Hispanic thing.
The concept of shifting responsibility to nobody is key to understanding most of what’s been happening for the past two decades. And delegating unpalatable decisions to the contractor is simply a particular case of that.
With no real accountability, everyone in the management chain has only two incentives: (1) collect the biggest paycheck and bonus possible and (2) minimize any “uprising”, whistleblowing, or other things that may threaten (1).
LANL management has become not unlike the church molester scandal. No matter what you do, you just get transferred to another position. In the worst case, you walk away (retire).
You screw up royally, by destroying a once-great basic science division? We put you in charge of the “Feynman center for innovation”. You sexually harass and assault a married subordinate? We gently ask you to retire. You embezzle lab funds by paying your husband to attend the Santa Fe opera? Ditto. You shut the entire lab down under false pretenses, triggering an exodus of top talent and costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars? You land a cushy government job in DC.
Until the system is changed to enforce real management accountability, the state of decay and dysfunction will continue. Identification of failed managers by name, demotion in rank, reductions in salary, dishonorable termination, and even criminal prosecution when appropriate — these things may not be always pretty, but they are necessary to save and turn around this National Laboratory.
7/10/2019 11:45 AM
You seem to think that this behavior isn't pervasive throughout government, and business and all of US society. Plus, most of the rest of the world. Pretty naive, and not very well traveled, are you?
11:43. I was wondering why said person showed up in Feynman. Seemed like a strange move. Well, now I know!
"You screw up royally, by destroying a once-great basic science division? We put you in charge of the “Feynman center for innovation”."
That is a shining example of your premise.
“You seem to think that this behavior isn't pervasive throughout government, and business and all of US society. Plus, most of the rest of the world.”
The argument here comes down to: “well, the rest of the world sucks too, don’t you know?” Superficially, this sounds reasonable. Superficially.
Of course throughout the world there are organizations that fail. But there are also ones that succeed. And all those that succeed in the long term, enforce accountability. You screw up, you get fired. You embezzle and lie, you go to jail. You exceed expectations, you get a raise, and maybe a promotion. Accountability is a necessary condition for success in organizations large and small. And it is starts at the top.
Are any of these organizations run by a government?
Of course throughout the world there are organizations that fail. But there are also ones that succeed. And all those that succeed in the long term, enforce accountability. You screw up, you get fired. You embezzle and lie, you go to jail. You exceed expectations, you get a raise, and maybe a promotion. Accountability is a necessary condition for success in organizations large and small. And it is starts at the top.
7/12/2019 12:51 AM
You are so naive and ignorant it is hard to know how to respond. You have obviously never served in a very large organization with multi-national responsibilities and commitments. What you call "accountability" does not exist in the commercial world. There is successful profit-seeking, and unsuccessful profit-seeking. The unsuccessful profit seekers are fired and replaced. The successful ones are promoted. What "starts at the top" is perks and privilege. Anyone with your viewpoint either would not have been hired in the first place, or if you chose to hide it, would be fired at the first blathering of your stupid views. No one cares about your social-justice crap. Can you make me a profit??
“You are so naive and ignorant it is hard to know how to respond. You have obviously never served in a very large organization with multi-national responsibilities and commitments. What you call "accountability" does not exist in the commercial world. There is successful profit-seeking, and unsuccessful profit-seeking. ”
Someone really hit the nerve here!
What is this “very large organization with multi-national responsibilities and commitments” where you are serving, in which there is no accountability? Please let us know, so that we can get very rich by shorting its stock.
I actually don’t think you serve in any such organization, or any commercial organization at all. By the tone of your post, and by poor underlying logic, it is most likely that your organization is called “the Feynman center for innovation”.
" By the tone of your post, and by poor underlying logic, it is most likely that your organization is called “the Feynman center for innovation”."
Are you implying that the current head of the Feynman center uses poor logic and is a poor manager? Who would have ever thought that? I think TRIAD has some other plans for tech transfer and there is going to be some changes coming to to that center soon.
What is this “very large organization with multi-national responsibilities and commitments” where you are serving, in which there is no accountability? Please let us know, so that we can get very rich by shorting its stock.
7/14/2019 1:22 AM
Sorry for your bad luck - it is not publicly traded. And, even worse luck, no one cares what you think.
Post a Comment