Military mobility reflects the expectation that the officer will bring operational experience, new ideas, a capacity for critical evaluation, and contacts with other organizations into the gaining organization. While the officer will have more contacts in the flying-force user community through previous shared assignments and schools, civilian teammates will probably maintain the edge in technical experience and corporate memory. Ideally, these two positions should not be in competition but should complement each other for the greater accomplishment of the technical development mission. Instances of poor military-civilian interaction aggravated by the military officer can occur because the offender, typically in a supervisory position, is more concerned with taking credit for program accomplishment for personal enhancement than with the product itself. Such individuals typically fail to recognize and support the predominantly civilian research and development personnel who have done the preponderance of the program preparation.
Subordinates can sense when they are being used, with a resulting drop in morale and productivity.
The civilian manager's reticence may be due to a lack of trust or respect for the contributions that the military members will make or a suspicion that innovative ideas or work already accomplished will be appropriated for the other's gain. When such situations occur, programs can stagnate for lack of fresh approaches, constructive criticism, and extra organizational support. Entire research laboratories have closed in part because their projects were perceived to lack mission relevancy or their objectives became fragmented. Therefore, it is not surprising that most management structures in Air Force laboratories have military-civilian management teams at virtually all levels of command, with the military member as commander and the civilian as deputy, or vice versa. My rationale for this situation is that the military engineer is expected to have developed more executive capacity than comparable civilian engineers, primarily as a result of varied operational assignments, professional leadership schooling, and exchange tours with other organizations and agencies.