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Medina Sidonia, Admiral of the Spanish Armada |
“We do not know where we are. We do not know where the enemy ships are. We sail on in the confident expectation of a miracle.”By the time the Duke of Sidonia made this, rather cynical, entry into his ship’s log, he was only too aware that the defeat of his mighty Armada was inevitable. However, he had never lacked the resource to win. The Armada far out-manned and out-gunned the English Fleet.
His problem was that he had the wrong organization to achieve the task.
The ships, in the Armada, were far too cumbersome to outmanoeuvre Drake’s smaller, faster vessels (Technologies). Sidonia was, also, not familiar with the difficult weather conditions, in the English Channel. He was unaware that strong winds could blow up, at any time. He was not organized to deal with the Environment, in which he had to operate.
For the same reason, the Spanish crews found themselves undertaking activities that were completely inappropriate to the needs of the situation (People and Technologies). Perhaps even worse, the relationships between Sidonia’s senior officers were strained (People). Many of the ships were financed and captained by rich Spanish Grandees (People and Structure). They had embarked upon the adventure with the covert aim of acquiring booty as much as defeating the English (Aims). They had little stomach for the fight. Bad relationships gave rise to poor motivation and a lack of leadership and teamwork (People and Structure).
In summary, the Armada’s Aims, People, Technologies and Structure were inappropriate for the Environment in which it had to achieve its mission.
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The rest, as they say, is history! We have developed a management model, which can be used to define and describe the structure and function of any Organization. This universal model forms the basis of much of our Organizational Development work. It contributed, significantly, to the DNA of the following Training Package.
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