Friedrich Hayek on the Military Decision Making Process

Compare this:

The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.

. . . in any society in which many people collaborate, this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner. The various ways in which the knowledge on which people base their plans is communicated to them is the crucial problem for any theory explaining the economic process, and the problem of what is the best way of utilizing knowledge initially dispersed among all the people is at least one of the main problems of economic policy—or of designing an efficient economic system.

to this:

The peculiar character of the problem of battle command is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which that command operates does not spring into being in a concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the various members of the command's staff possess, and must consciously concentrate and integrate under the command's leadership.

. . . in any military organization . . . planning . . . will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner. The various ways in which the knowledge on which a battle staff bases its plans is gathered is the crucial problem for any theory explaining the staff process-—thus the main problem of designing a coherent operation.

Such problems, consequences of how information is distributed among line units and staff agencies, appear even in very small organizations.