The Chain of Command vs. Disposable Friendships

We're all used to the notion of a chain of command, thinking of it in its military meaning. High ranking soldier passes a command to the person beneath him, he passes it along to the next lower ranking person, etc. Once the command has been completed, that fact is passed up from the lowliest soldier back up through intermediaries until it reaches the originator.

Most of us will implicitly sneer at this, just for the dogmatic and unyielding simplicity if nothing else. I'll assert, however, that there is more to the chain of command than most people understand, and its benefits are far more important than we accept.

One critical side benefit of a chain of command is that problems are resolved at the lowest level possible. In other words, if a soldier (sailor, airman, marine) has an issue, he goes to his supervisor to try to solve it. If it can be solved at that level, it is considered resolved. If not, it is passed up one more level, where the "if...then...else" is repeated. Think about the novelty and the beauty of this: Problems are solved in a logical, predictable manner rather than in a helter-skelter barrage of who can make the noisiest wheel. Military people are trained to work and think this way, but how often does it work that way in civilian land? Have a problem at work but don't want to wait for your supervisor to have a try at fixing it? Go straight to the CEO. Don't like something your kid's teacher did? Go to the principal...no wait, let's make it the superintendent. Got a beef with the way a government employee handled something? Not gonna talk with the next public servant up the foodchain, oh no, let's call the state capital or Washington DC.

The problem with this hopscotch chain of command is that it slows down solving problems. If you have experienced something unfair or something you didn't like, isn't your goal to have the issue resolved? If so, that can be done most quickly and most easily at the lowest possible level. If the goal is simply to make noise, to be a squeaky wheel, then yes, bypass all the intermediaries and go straight to the top. Granted, since everybody else is doing the same thing and going straight to the top, the head of the foodchain won't do anything other than roll it back down, but it sure felt good, didn't it.

That's not to say there are not times that an issue needs to be escalated, that the next level will not be able to solve a problem, but the idea is to give them a chance to do so. If they can't and you have to escalate, that's perfectly fine, and you've made a good-faith effort along the way.

Moral of the story: Solve your problems at the lowest possible level.

But.....that's not the end of the blog. I'll go so far as to suggest that this concept of solving problems at the lowest possible level applies not just in your professional life, not just in the consumer world, but in your personal life as well. Wouldn't we all be more harmonious if we worked with that friend or loved one to clear up a misunderstanding rather than blowing it out of proportion? Wouldn't we be better off if the next time we had a disagreement with a loved one if we tried to talk and work it out rather than going behind that lover's back? How about friendships? Can you truly have a friendship that doesn't occasionally hit a bump, and in those cases do you draw your friend aside and try to discuss it, or do you "vent" to a third party. Do you really make an effort to talk with a friend, lover, relative when something disappointing happens, or do you skirt around them? Do you give a friend who made a mistake a chance to understand what happens, maybe even apologize and make things right, or do you run to a third party to gossip about it?

Most of us, candidly, fail pretty miserably in this area. A friend disappoints us, and we treat the friendship as disposable, casting it aside (temporarily if not permanently) while we let the disappointment fester. We'll gossip to a third party, until, of course, he/she does something wrong, when we move on to another disposable friend.

Try, just try, to think of this as a chain of command experience. Your friend says or does something you disapprove of. Just now and then, rather than tossing in the towel on that person, try resolving it at the lowest possible level----talk with that person directly. Explain what happened, why you think what you do. Give the friend a chance to explain, to make amends, to do the right thing. Avoid the temptation to "vent" to somebody else, which far too often is nothing more than seeking somebody out who will validate your desire to abandon that person. If the friendship is truly irreparable, then abandon it only after trying to mend it directly with your friend.