During its first major World War II engagement against German and Italian troops, the U.S. Army did not start well in Tunisia. One of the many changes that turned the course of battle in early 1943 was Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's decision to move his generals closer to the front. Leaders too far back tend not to know what is going on.
The Highway Patrol can take a lesson from Ike and move its leaders forward, too. The patrol has been wracked by numerous scandals this year, and the patrol commander is scheduled to leave office on Sept. 1. Gov. Bev Perdue has appointed a special panel to study the patrol's organizational problems and, during their first meeting, panel members discussed moving more leaders to the front.
The patrol has a good many high-ranking officers serving in Raleigh offices. Anyone who walks around the state government complex will see that they are conspicuous for their uniforms, standing out in a sea of white-shirted bureaucrats. Their patrol cars are obvious in the parking lots.
The panel was interested in 18 of those officers. If the 18 were transferred back to the field, the ratio of officers to field supervisors would drop dramatically. Subsequently, each patrol supervisor would be responsible for only eight troopers.
Many of the embarrassing incidents involving in-the-field troopers look very much like the product of insufficient supervision. While the panel did not officially endorse the idea of moving the 18 officers out of Raleigh, their conversation appeared to be mostly positive on it.
Such a shake-up would almost certainly ruffle some feathers in the patrol's leadership. A move back to the field will mean uprooting families, and some officers would be likely to see it as a demotion. But the officers would not be demoted. That's an important distinction. They would be returned to jobs they were trained to do: Serve the public in the field and lead others.
This is exactly the kind of idea the patrol needs right now, and it is no coincidence that it comes from a panel of outsiders. Given the nature of bureaucracies -- and make no mistake, the patrol has a bureaucracy in Raleigh -- this kind of idea would have never come from a panel of insiders. Organizations rarely heal totally from inside, because the entrenched power structure usually seeks to preserve itself and maintain the status quo.
This won't be the last idea from the special panel. But it's a good start.
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