How could there be a connection between VA Hospitals and Distributed control systems? There is a connection and that is the theme of this blog.
First, look at the US military who controls the VA hospitals. This is clearly a top down type control system and it deals reasonably well where there are a very limited number of things that need to be accomplished. The US military does it exactly the same way that Napoleon did it a few hundred years ago. Don't know how he did it? He wrote manuals and procedures for everything including how to feed a horse. It would be like putting gas in a Jeep today. If you think about it, the US military has procedures for everything and that is the problem. When a big organization only has a few major tasks, this works fine, but not for situations where most people have to do different tasks.
In the past, I blogged about how honey bees are managed. It is not top down, it is totally distributed. When 100,000 bees go out in the morning to collect pollen from flowers, each bee has to figure out which flower to go too. If bees were top down controlled like the US military, the honey bee could not carry the manuals and procedures, plus it would be spending all of its time reading the long complicated procedures to figure out what flower to go too. Are you starting to see the difference?
In a VA hospital we have hundreds of very different patients and each requires a slightly different type of care. We are talking about thousands of different tasks that change every day. I think that you can see that no top down type of management control system could run this type of situation efficiently. Well, top down is how the VA operates.
Now, look at boot camp and the way our military is organized. We have the worker bees and the officers. These two groups never eat or drink together. The worker bees take orders from officers who are not qualified in the skills that it takes for the worker bee to do their jobs. How is that for an arrangement that is doomed? You know exactly what happens over time. The work bees lose all of their initiative and just turn their brains off and follow the commands from above. A worker bee in the above situation can never expect to get ahead by working hard or showing any initiative so they just do the minimum until retirement. This is the atmosphere in the VA hospitals too. Further, if the worker bee does more and show initiative, he does not get paid any more nor does he get promoted.
Rather than a top down system, what the VA hospitals need is a system directly opposite of the US military and that is distributed with individuals using their brains more and getting rewarded for it. Honey bees and ants have figured this out millions of years ago, but our US military still has not gotten beyond what Napoleon was doing a few hundred years ago. Notice that ISIS uses a distributed control system and with just a few guys off the streets they are doing a better job and for a lot less money than the soldiers that our military has trained. Sad, but true.
Top down works well for small organizations or where there are a limited number of tasks to be done. The distributed organization does not work as well as a top down system for small organization or where the tasks are limited, but it works better when the organization get larger and larger and where the number of tasks gets larger. There are all kinds of examples out there that prove this point. Look at economics for large countries vs small or flocks of geese or fish that have to migrate. All I ask is that we all keep an open mind on this and not think that to make a big system work that all you need to do is keep tightening the screws. If we do that, we will all get screwed in the end.
PS----Look at two games, Football and Basketball. Football is clearly a top down type of game where the Quarterback gives the "play" and all the bees carry out the "play". In Basketball, they have general plays or strategies, but each players has to figure out exactly what to so "second" by "second". There is none of this "second" by "second" business in Football.
First, look at the US military who controls the VA hospitals. This is clearly a top down type control system and it deals reasonably well where there are a very limited number of things that need to be accomplished. The US military does it exactly the same way that Napoleon did it a few hundred years ago. Don't know how he did it? He wrote manuals and procedures for everything including how to feed a horse. It would be like putting gas in a Jeep today. If you think about it, the US military has procedures for everything and that is the problem. When a big organization only has a few major tasks, this works fine, but not for situations where most people have to do different tasks.
In the past, I blogged about how honey bees are managed. It is not top down, it is totally distributed. When 100,000 bees go out in the morning to collect pollen from flowers, each bee has to figure out which flower to go too. If bees were top down controlled like the US military, the honey bee could not carry the manuals and procedures, plus it would be spending all of its time reading the long complicated procedures to figure out what flower to go too. Are you starting to see the difference?
In a VA hospital we have hundreds of very different patients and each requires a slightly different type of care. We are talking about thousands of different tasks that change every day. I think that you can see that no top down type of management control system could run this type of situation efficiently. Well, top down is how the VA operates.
Now, look at boot camp and the way our military is organized. We have the worker bees and the officers. These two groups never eat or drink together. The worker bees take orders from officers who are not qualified in the skills that it takes for the worker bee to do their jobs. How is that for an arrangement that is doomed? You know exactly what happens over time. The work bees lose all of their initiative and just turn their brains off and follow the commands from above. A worker bee in the above situation can never expect to get ahead by working hard or showing any initiative so they just do the minimum until retirement. This is the atmosphere in the VA hospitals too. Further, if the worker bee does more and show initiative, he does not get paid any more nor does he get promoted.
Rather than a top down system, what the VA hospitals need is a system directly opposite of the US military and that is distributed with individuals using their brains more and getting rewarded for it. Honey bees and ants have figured this out millions of years ago, but our US military still has not gotten beyond what Napoleon was doing a few hundred years ago. Notice that ISIS uses a distributed control system and with just a few guys off the streets they are doing a better job and for a lot less money than the soldiers that our military has trained. Sad, but true.
Top down works well for small organizations or where there are a limited number of tasks to be done. The distributed organization does not work as well as a top down system for small organization or where the tasks are limited, but it works better when the organization get larger and larger and where the number of tasks gets larger. There are all kinds of examples out there that prove this point. Look at economics for large countries vs small or flocks of geese or fish that have to migrate. All I ask is that we all keep an open mind on this and not think that to make a big system work that all you need to do is keep tightening the screws. If we do that, we will all get screwed in the end.
PS----Look at two games, Football and Basketball. Football is clearly a top down type of game where the Quarterback gives the "play" and all the bees carry out the "play". In Basketball, they have general plays or strategies, but each players has to figure out exactly what to so "second" by "second". There is none of this "second" by "second" business in Football.
