When is bypassing the chain of command OK, and when does it violate protocol?

Dear Bob …

I just read “How should IT deal with ‘digital natives?’ With open arms,” in which you advise the CIO to meet for quite a lot of hours with, I presume, lowest-level folk, and actively involve them in making policy. I would call your recommendation “Collaborative Policy Formation and Implementation.”

[ See also: “How should IT deal with ‘digital natives?’ With open arms” | Get sage advice on IT careers and management from Bob Lewis in InfoWorld’s Advice Line newsletter. ]

Well, I wouldn’t call it that as a sales title — the sound is heavy and deadly dull. To sex it up and sell it I’d call it “Policy 2.0.”

Another way of characterizing your advice: You advised the CIO, basically, to be a smart mensch.

I think that your advice in this case is clearly perfect. Also, approximately as non-hierarchical as I can imagine. Top talks directly to bottom, “going around” and/or “cutting out” a couple of management layers? What happened to chain of command? Or Command and Control? It sounds more like an orgy than a hierarchy, and similar problems can be imagined.

There are two kinds of authority that I can think of right off-hand. One is the authority granted a person by their position, title, rank (“positional authority”). The other is the natural authority that humans gain simply by being right, smart, well-informed, wise, good thinkers, effective, and competent (“real authority”).

Persons with positional authority can often be highly threatened just by the existence and proximity of persons with real authority. There doesn’t even need to be a conflict or explicit challenge. There always exists an implicit or latent challenge simply because humans, when and if things ever “get serious,” will naturally respect and tend to follow real authorities.

Military folks understand this very well. It’s a main reason why, when someone (like Haig) without real authority gets promoted for “political” reasons, it galls and disgusts people.

Back to the CIO and/versus digital natives scenario: Policy-making, when it’s not a sham, is serious stuff. So when things get serious and the orgy starts, people will start choosing and building connections based on attractiveness and power (of ideas) and skill, rather than job title. What happens when the middle managers get jealous?

I repeat that I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I just wonder about the side effects of the strategy you outline.

– Wondering

Dear Wondering …

The nature of the chain of command is frequently misunderstood. There’s no violation of protocol when those higher up listen to anyone in their organization.

The violation of protocol happens when those higher up bypass intermediate managers when giving assignments. Among the many disadvantages is this: Unless the higher-up manager assumes the intermediate managers aren’t keeping employees busy, any additional direct assignment must oversubscribe the staff member on the receiving end of the bypass.

So the rule is that listening can skip levels, but delegation can’t.

You talked about natural and positional authority — good distinction. The best organizations make sure those who have the most natural authority are in the best positions to use it, of course. Strong leaders who have positional authority are delighted to have as many natural leaders in their organizations as they can find: They don’t threaten the positional leader; they just share the leadership load.

When that isn’t the case, I think the employee response is a bit more complex than you give credit for. When serious situations come up, employees have to figure out how best to survive them. The natural leaders are in the best position to help the organization get through the challenge; the positional leaders are the ones who will decide which employees to keep and which to exile to Siberia, once the shooting has stopped.

We’re talking about poisonous political situations right now, and in poisonous political situations, deciding which risk is higher — getting shot during the battle or being shot by order of an apparatchik afterward because of showing the wrong loyalties — is a complex calculus.

The usual response is to keep your head down and figure your only loyalty is to yourself — not a bad choice, when you get right down to it.

– Bob