Management Theory As we shift into a new era of management, the outmoded theories rooted in Classical and Scientific Management apply only to specific organizations in specific situations. Newly emerging theories of management take into account not only diversity issues but also issues related to workplace satisfaction, which in turn reduces employee turnover and therefore can improve overall performance. Management theories now need to promote learning organizations and a managerial culture that is supportive and ethical. Morgan (2006) highlights the role of the learning organization, also referring to the ways organizations can be viewed as cultures with norms and values all their own. Based on Morgan's (2006) analyses, a theoretical approach to management that is both effective and ethical takes into account the following ten points.

Ubuntu and Respect for Others: Senge (2014) discusses the Zulu concept of "Ubuntu," and how it applies to modern management theory and practice. Ubuntu can be defined loosely as respect or acknowledgement of others. Simple forms of nonverbal communication such as eye contact and smiling can enhance the workplace environment in tangible ways, thereby increasing employee workplace satisfaction, reducing absenteeism, reducing turnover, and increasing worker participation in dialogue. Moreover, Ubuntu can be viewed as a means of stimulating an ethical workplace environment in which all persons are respected.

Systems Thinking: Systems thinking prevents narrow-mindedness and calls attention to "big picture issues (Senge, 2014). Using systems thinking, members of the organization make decisions that are based on the natural flow of communication and other organic ways an organization works, rather than on the mechanistic models that do not accurately reflect reality.

Holographic Design: A holographic design of an organization promotes learning because it reveals points of interdependency and potent points of relationship (Morgan, 2006). Holographic designs encourage organizations to respond to problems effectively and intelligently.

Conflict Management: A learning organization capitalizes on conflict, using skillful techniques of conflict management including the acknowledgement of diversity in the organizational culture.

Supportive Management: Dupre & Day (2007) note that supportive management techniques promote employee satisfaction and improve employee performance. Supportive management may include allowances for workers to develop strong work-life balance.

Reducing Perceived Threats: Holbrook, Sousa & Hahn-Holbrook (2011) show that people are prone to vehement defenses of their worldviews, however skewed they may be, when threats are perceived. To encourage a collaborative work environment, threats should be minimized and dialogue encouraged instead.

Role Clarity: Role clarity is critical to the success of an organization and its leaders.

Visionary Leadership: When leadership in the organization remains visionary, managers and supervisors are encouraged to share in the collective vision and impart that vision to all employees.

Appropriate matching of culture to goals: Organizational goals need to align with the structure and culture of the organization. Some organizations may need a more mechanistic model, such as the military, whereas others need a looser and more organic one.

Vigilance: Remaining vigilant to performance measures, employee feedback, and subtle changes in the organizational culture, leaders can detect the seeds of problems before they erupt into crises.

Part Two: Analysis of Military

The military is a classic mechanistic organization. Military organizations demonstrate cornerstones of the mechanistic principles of management including the use of systematic training, machine-like operations and task management, strong "distinctions between advisory and command functions," decentralized controls but strong autonomous group goals, and most importantly, "precisely defined lines of command or communication," (Morgan, 2006, p. 17-18). As a mechanistic organization, the military can run like a well-oiled machine, its points of weakness repaired instantly and its functions determined with precision and clarity. Members of the military organization perform their job with a rigid precision and certainty expected of machine parts. The benefits of the mechanistic model in military operations include discipline and predictability, as the military must remain focused throughout its operations, consistent, and with a commitment to law, order, and obedience. Turnover, absenteeism, and discontent can be problems with grave consequences.

However, the parameters of military management may need to shift in order to promote the goals of the organization. Dupre & Day (2007) point out the high costs of turnover in the military, which has been experiencing problems related to health and well-being. In the military, the health of personnel is critical. To promote the health and well-being of military members, managers and persons in positions of power can apply the principles of supportive management as well as altering management techniques...

Role ambiguity can be minimized with improved two-way communication, as members are encouraged to voice concerns and ask questions. Furthermore, Dupre & Day (2007) note that an improved work-life balance would minimize turnover and health-related absenteeism in the military.
The military is traditionally a mechanistic organization but can exhibit some of the features of a learning organization. Too much military mentality leads to forms of aggression that might not be productive, notes Morgan (2006, p. 140). Instead, the military could evolve its organizational culture and models of management towards a more holographic pattern that accounts for surprise, conflict, and the demands of change in an increasingly unpredictable world. Bureaucracy and mechanization will remain integral to the military model because it must eventually function with machine-like precision, and yet attention must be paid to human factors that have previously been ignored including workplace satisfaction (Dupre & Day, 2007). Mental health issues are a prime example of how the military can respond better and improve its management techniques.

Classical Management theory can be most readily applied to the military, which is characterized by its organizational hierarchies. Those hierarchies are embedded in military culture and are defined by "precisely defined lines of command or communication," in which the chain of command takes precedence (Morgan, 2006, p. 18). Moreover, the military exhibits "precisely defined points of resistance or rigidity," in order to identity and address conflict (Morgan, 2006, p. 18). While these classical management principles continue to operate in military culture, a highly trained military organization may be one that emphasizes intelligence and dialogue in some of the most important military departments. In the future, non-combat military roles might be characterized less and less by classical management and mechanistic management and more and more by the features of learning organizations.

Part Three: Application of Freud and Plato to the Military

Although not a traditional means of deconstructing and analyzing the military, both Freudian/psychoanalytic and Platonian and neo-Platonian theories can help improve understanding of the military and how it can be improved as an organization. Plato's Republic includes a mainstay metaphor: that of the cave in which individuals mistake illusion for reality. Only those willing to step outside the confines of the cave can see the world for what it is. Morgan (2006) extends Plato's metaphor and applies it to organizations. Some organizations create what Morgan (2006) calls a "psychic prison," in which groupthink and other problems become pervasive. Likewise, Morgan (2006) successfully applies Freud's psychoanalytic theory and its components like the death wish and repressed sexuality to organizational culture and theory. The military can best be understood through these philosophical lenses, especially as the organization may be poised to make key constructive changes to its management operations.

The psychic prison prevents change and inhibits effective responsiveness. Even as rigidity can be a value in a military context, rigidity can also prevent creative solutions to newly emerging problems such as those that might be evident in counterterrorism efforts. Just as Sahlins (2009) discusses the drawbacks of hierarchy and capitalism manifest in academia, so too is the military a victim of its own structures and rigidly defined goals. Hierarchy enhances discipline and chain of command in some situations, but prevents individual members from stepping outside the cave and alerting supervisors of existential threats. Blindness and ignorance are the result of an organization that remains in the psychic prison, as even managers remain in the dark. The shadows on the cave wall may refer also to what is lost in the chain of command: the reasons behind certain orders, activities, or methods. Without access to the bigger picture and the fundamental goals of any mission, even the supervisory level of the bureaucracy cannot act with complete effectiveness as all actions are constrained by a lack of knowledge or power to act with creative and critical thought. As a metaphor, the psychic prison model may not always apply and does need to be made as flexible as possible.

Freudian analysis of the military provides a rich assessment of the unconscious processes that take place in the organization as a whole, as well as among individual members. Each person will have an unconscious schema or lens through which others and other situations are viewed. Decisions are made with biased assumptions prompted by emotional and unconscious psychic content. The entire organization can become neurotic in this way, dysfunctional in meeting its core objectives. Freud also presents an apt but symbolic means of understanding deep dynamics in the military organizational culture including repressed sexuality, the death wish, anxiety, shadow selves, sublimation, and transference. Of these principles, few are more salient in the military model as the internal conflict between thanatos…