A response to Ronnie Lajoie on how the NSS is organized

03/03/13 19:22:00    

By Michael Mealling

Several weeks ago I wrote The National Space Society: organizational inertia and term limits where I expressed some thoughts about how the NSS is organized and whether it could be done better. Long time NSS leader and volunteer Ronnie Lajoie responded with a detailed discussion about why the NSS was run this way and how it worked. Instead of responding to the original post I wanted to break this out into a top level post to discuss organizational behavior in non-profits. Ronnie's original response is in-line and blockquoted.

Despite what appears to be a mess, try to plot the entire organizational structure of Boeing or Microsoft on a single chart. This chart shows multiple levels and can/will eventually be made into several more pretty charts. But the bottom line is any large organization needs some kind of structure, and NSS is involved in a lot of different activities. It was the lack of such official structure in the NSS bylaws that led to the creation of the NSS Corporate Policies document (CPD) in late 2004.

While I definitely agree that structure is needed, the goal should be to make that structure as simple as possible. Following the lead of Google, Apple, and yes, even SpaceX, many large companies are trying to simplify and flatten their management structures. From that article there's this from KPGM CIO Chris Robinson:

“KPMG experiences nearly 20 percent turnover in its global workforce every year. “A lot of people choose to leave any organization because of silos and hierarchy,” Robinson said. “Our challenge is how do we change the hierarchy so it isn’t one of the top three reasons people leave?” Being from the financial industry, a heavily regulated industry where risk departments often say ‘no,’ “You have young people coming in and saying I don’t really conform to that sort of style of organization,” Robinson said.”

One key difference between these companies and the NSS is that the NSS works with volunteers that have varying levels of experience, time and self direction. The key to flat structures is transparency and accountability. That is difficult when the team members are volunteers. Volunteers don't like feeling like unpaid employees. But even so, flatter and simpler is better. It is more transparent, accountable, and responsive.

For nearly two decades (1987-2004), NSS struggled with four unnamed Vice-Presidents (per the bylaws) whose roles and responsibilities varied with each NSS election. Ditto the committees, which had near zero authority. Since every Officer was either a voting or non-voting member of the Board of Directors, every little disagreement went to the Executive Committee or, worse, to the Board of Directors. Do NSS critics really want us to return to those chaotic times???

I don't think anyone is suggesting that, myself least of all. I can see where what exists now is an improvement. What I think some are suggesting is that the current organization is in response to past issues rather than future needs. Instead of asking how to fix what happened then, could we ask a different question: “If the NSS were created today from whole cloth to accomplish its mission, what would it look like?”

The sunk cost fallacy is just as applicable to organizational structure as it is to financial decisions.

Since the CPD, the NSS has made great strides in getting “its act together” (in the words of Mr. Cowing). We have a Strategic Plan (also published in /docs) and have been making progress towards achieving its goals. That too was also a product of governance activities that began in 2004. We invite you to review that and other corporate documents and send us your feedback – or better yet, become involved! NSS is a very democratic organization – with all that comes with democracy.

Having been involved with many open source projects over the years where the individual members are all volunteers (some dedicated and some very tenuous), I think there is a limit to democracy and I wonder whether that pendulum may have swung to far in one direction at the NSS. In “Homesteading the Noosphere” Eric S. Raymond coined the term “benevolent dictator”. Within certain areas of the NSS could there be a role for 'benevolent dictators'?

The dashed “coordination paths” were meant to show that an NSS leader does not need to go up and down the chain to talk to other leaders – so I have to disagree with Mike on that point. In fact, it seemed to me that Paul LIKED the NSS chain-of-command and was happy to let his “boss” (the SOO) control the flow of information to and from him. But in this time of email, instant messaging, tweets, and texting; it remains far to easy for any NSS leader to immediately contact any other (Paul did so as well). In reality, these “coordination paths” are still all over the map, so the real intent of the CPD was to clarify the chain-of-command for decision-making.

Yes, in a world where communication is easy the default is to assume coordination paths between all leaders. Especially if the default is that those communications are available to all other members unless it involved something that needed to be confidential. A flatter organization also negates the need to clarify the chain of command.

Since the creation of the CPD, there has been much less arguing AFTER a decision is made by the appropriate authority. The current crisis in the NSS leadership can “easily” be resolved by a vote of the NSS Board of Directors, because the current argument is between the two highest Officers of the Society over the scope of authority of the NSS Policy Committee. The NSS bylaws apparently is not clear enough, which means the Board of Directors needs to revise the bylaws and/or add a clause in the CPD to make it clear who is responsible for what. So yes, NSS actually needs a bit MORE bureaucracy (of the right kind) than less.

I encourage you all to read the NSS bylaws and the CPD, because there seems to be a misunderstanding of the role of the Executive Director in this particular Society. Unlike other organizations to which you may be comparing NSS, the NSS Executive Director is not a dictator and is not in charge of everything that happens in the Society.

I have looked through the bylaws and CPD and my instinct it to toss it and start over. What I didn't find in the bylaws and CPD was why the two highest offices exist? My instinct in this case would not be to add a clause but delete one. Delete the Senior Operating Officer role, make the Executive Director report directly to the Executive Committee, and cut the number of people on the Executive Committee in half.

The bylaws (written a very long time ago) makes it clear (and Paul knew this) that the “Executive Director shall: (a) Manage and direct all activities of the Society as prescribed by the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee; (b) [hire staff]; © [supervise staff]; (d) Serve, if he or she so desires, as an ex-officio member, without the right to vote or the right to be counted as part of a quorum, on the Executive Committee and any or all other Boards, Committees and other bodies of the Society; and (e) Perform such other duties as may be assigned by the Board of Directors or Executive Committee.” So (again, correcting Mike) Paul (like all past EDs) was a very active participant on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee, and any other committee of interest.

There's a big difference between participating and having the authority and responsibility to act. In the current structure how much autonomy does the Executive Directory have and what would be the drawbacks of combining the Senior Operating Officer and Executive Director into one position?

Since the creation of the NSS in 1987, the Executive Director has always been the recipient of directives from the Board of Directors, Executive Committee, and its Chair (CEC).

Ouch! Three bosses?

The CPD is an Executive Committee document of official directives. While inserting the SOO as well, the CPD provides a structure to formally clarify roles and responsibilities of the various Vice-Presidents and their operatings committees, and their working relationships with the Executive Director and HQ staff, Chapters, and individual volunteers. Paul very much understood this.

I can see someone understanding it. I'm questioning whether its the most effective way of doing things.

Truth is, NSS is short-staffed, short on volunteers, short on money, and unfortunately increasingly short on members. Yes, NSS is hurting and needs YOUR help.

Yep, and that's what I'm trying to do. If it were beyond hope I wouldn't be setting up a state level chapter. What I am trying to do is bring industry best practices to bear. I've experienced much larger organizations accomplish truely amazing things with a very flat organization (IETF) while others with very complicated ones (ITU/OSI) accomplish very little. I think its time the CPD, L5, NSI, and all that has come before be tossed and start over with something a bit more like this:

The thickness of the line represents how much of the day to day coordination and communication is done. If anyone above the Executive Director is involved then we're doing it wrong. No vice presidents, board of advisors, senior operating offices, etc. In this model committees are as autonomous as possible but report to the Executive Director in order to implement things sent down from the Board. Take the two Internet committees for example, in this model there would be one but internally it could be organized according to whatever rules it needed. Committees chose their leadership but are subject to override by the Executive Committee. Conflicts are handled by a Board subcommittee.

The President is elected and concerned with up and out while the Exective Directory is a paid position that is all about down and in. The Board's job is contemplating the future and basic governance. The Board should be very bored.

I hope this is taken as a constructive suggestion. What I'm worried about is how what we currently have could be replaced with something more lightweight. If current constituencies and power centers are involved in developing something new then the same structure will simply be re-created. There needs to be a dictator somewhere. In the worst case that dictator can be an empty bank account.