Check out a book called *Team of Teams* by General Stanley McChrystal.  This is how the military operates today and is really all about putting the power to make decisions into the hands of the people on the ground and out of the hands of senior military leadership.  It is not my typical read but is really a fantastic book that dives into not only military scenarios/examples but also areas such as the airline industry and how they have managed to dramatically reduce air crashes over the last decade caused by human error 
(the recent Boeing disasters aside).