Organizational Communication (Semester Summary)

Organizations are a part of all our lives. Although we are often born into organizations and cultures, as individuals we do our best when we question our life purpose and our place in the organization. By doing so we recognize we have many choices in the organizations we join and the organizations we leave.

John O'Neill. The Man Who Knew. The man who saturated himself in knowledge, became an expert in his profession, and ultimately questioned the mission of his organization. O'Neill's communication style was interpreted through his flashy clothes, aggressiveness, and worldwide contacts. The verdict was O'Neill was not cut from the same clothe and he had sharp elbows. "You can get by with some sharper elbows for a while, but you need to be right a lot." James Kallstrom, former NY FBI director continues, "You can have those types of character traits -- you really need to have those to get the job done sometimes -- but there'll always be a comeuppance in bureaucracies if you exercise that too much and you don't restrain it."

The structure of the bureaucracy is described by the well-written text Strategic Organizational Communication in a Global Economy as one which is specialized, hierarchical, and centralized. For those individuals raised in societies with this structure it is seen as normal and natural. "As members of these societies mature, they learn that formal rules are necessary for the efficient operation of societies and organizations because they protect people from arbitrary or harmful treatment by more powerful people."

 

O'Neill's life-consuming expertise in counter terrorism led him to seek out a reorganization within the agency to draw more attention on the looming threat of Al-Qaeda. When he could find no internal support within the hierarchy and management of Louis Freeh and supportive, centralized associates such as Thomas Pickard, O'Neill's friends began to advise him to take his expertise to a field office. 

 

O'Neill did move to the New York office and worked for another career FBI person. His boss, James Kallstrom said, "I had a fairly low opinion of headquarters throughout my whole career. It seemed like, you know, the headquarters was a very negative place, where they would find a million reasons why you couldn't do something, as opposed to why you could do something. It was not the type of place where you always felt you were getting a lot of assistance." However, much to O'Neill's dismay, his reputation seemed to still influence the hierarchical decision makers choices during critical times.  In a painfully obvious manner such tasks were not assigned to John O'Neill, but to  agents who were not necessarily experts or as well versed in counter terrorism.

The semester text cites scholarly findings which, "found that when the environment is unstable and turbulent, the bureaucracy is too slow to adapt. Its formal structures, standard operating procedures, and centralized decision making limit its members' ability to recognized the need for change and make it inflexible when change is necessary." Robert Bryant, former FBI deputy director confirms, "The trouble with the FBI, it never knew what it knew. I mean, it had information, but it never got to the right places."

Watch The Man Who Knew on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

John O'Neill. The self-taught counter terrorism expert. The man who devoted his career and life to the FBI. The Man Who Knew. The man who spoke up. The man who was chased out of the FBI. 

Former colleague, Joe Cantamessa says,  "There is a difference between those people who spend time in an organization and are happy to make it to the top and have never rolled over a stone or created a problem or solved a problem, you know, just to carefully run through, and be there and be promoted. John was not like that."

No, John O'Neill was not like that. O'Neill spoke up. He told the hard truth. He consistently acted on his truth. Socrates advises us well in times of turmoil "All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine." Many less resilient and hardy leaders have caved and fallen into mediocrity. As I read Socrates, people, organizations they can appear to do us harm but in truth the soul of a good person cannot be permanently tainted by the corruption of others.