Wandering Into Wisdom

This blog chronicles the knowledge, insight and wisdom I encounter every day as a leadership consultant, executive coach, educator, father, friend and citizen. This site is dedicated to my father, Louis (Jack) Laughlin, who passed on to me an appreciation for wisdom. A special thanks to my friend Isaac Cheifetz, a businessman and journalist, who helped me understand the value of blogs and encouraged me to write one.

Command and Control

I got an excellent explanation of command and control from a client who is an ex military officer. You are in control when you are in physical control of something. You have a key, a password or some other device that puts you in control. You are in command when you have legal authority over someone or something. There are legal consequences if a command is not obeyed. In both cases there are repercussions for the person in command or control if something goes wrong. In the military you can go to Leavenworth and in civilian life you can get fired. Because command and control both create bottlenecks in an organization they should only be used when necessary. They should also be pushed down in the organization, the company president should not keep the keys to the company cars.