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Wild Bill's avatar

What comes to my mind in reading this is an old management concept called the 'matrix organization.' In such a firm there are two more-or-less orthogonal 'chains of command,' one of which is functional chain (accounting, for example) and one a business or project chain (automotive business). While this concept is largely discredited, because of the tensions and conflicts resulting from multiple managers with different and not necessarily aligned goals, such tensions and conflicts could be a most useful feature of an organization such as you describe here.

An organization like this is not necessarily limited to two dimensions. Conceivably, it could have multiple dimensions operating in different thought planes. The intersection points between the dimensions (planes) are where the tension, and therefore the key activities, reside.

Such intersections need not be correlated in any meaningful way and indeed, complex organizational goals could be accomplished by people and groups in such an organization, where each has only a passing (it that) familiarity with what others are doing.

Such an organization would appear from the outside exactly as you describe: chaotic and unfocused.

But it would be capable of operating in such a way that no one group understood the overall goals and objectives, which likely would be too complex to be managed at that level in any case. Sort of like the blind men trying to describe an elephant by the sense of touch: one, feeling the elephant's trunk, thinks it is a snake; another, feeling a leg, thinks it is a tree.

A multi-dimensional chess player like Trump would be one of the few to grasp the overall strategy. To everyone else, it looks like random, inconsequential and mostly wasted energy. But such an organization could accomplish things so that the risk of outside penetration is greatly reduced. With no one person or group cognizant of the overall objective, how do you infiltrate it? Moreover, do you even know it is there, to try to infiltrate it?

Such an organizational structure could be extremely useful for a shadow, clandestine group operating 'hidden in plain sight.' Nothing is what it seems and nobody can see the entirety of what is going on, except for a small group of masterminds behind the scenes.

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K Mack's avatar

Wow ...,this is an expert analysis of the current and ongoing situation. This made me smile as I was reading it and helped me understand a little more clearly what I long suspected is really going on. Amazing work. Thank you!!

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