Harmony Rather than Unity: A Command Concept for Complex Endeavours

This paper discusses concepts of command for complex endeavors. The traditional concepts of Unity of Command and Unity of Effort are found wanting, the former because there is no single individual in command of a complex endeavor, the latter because there is often no time to develop the comprehensive plan required, and if there is time, it is nevertheless difficult because different organizations have different planning methods and different planning cultures. A new command concept, based on our experience from studies of peace support operations is proposed. It is called Harmony of Efforts and it is a C2 concept for complex endeavors that involve a number of organizations, each of which does what it usually does, and for which there is no one commander with authority to enforce unity of command or unity of effort. Under these circumstances, Harmony of Efforts is all that one can hope for. The command concept of Harmony of Efforts specifies the spirit in which C2 issues should be approached, which is cooperation, the method to be used, which is negotiation, and the substance of C2, i.e., what C2 can usefully be concerned with in complex endeavors, which is the management of interfaces between organizations. This paper focuses on concepts of command, an aspect of C2 that has not received the attention that it deserves. As a consequence, I believe that we are stuck with ideas about command that are inappropriate to the kinds of complex endeavors, i.e., the multiorganizational, multi-national operations that we are now conducting. The term “concept of command” refers to the overall guiding principle for command in an operation or an endeavor which is used to insure that the maximum possible overall effect is achieved. Two familiar alternatives are Unity of Command and Unity of Effort. Neither of these concepts is really appropriate for complex endeavors, however. This is because the 1 I am grateful to the track chairmen for their useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.