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Fan of the Marine Corps model: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm Some of them ar

Fan of the Marine Corps model: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm Some of them are painfully obvious, but these are sometimes absent when they shouldn't be. (I also suspect this is what Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr either draw from, or coincide with.)

cirgue 8y ago
'Painfully obvious' can sometimes completely non-obvious when you're in an environment where bad habits, political bs, and other human weirdness dominate the patterns of interaction. This is true for most organizations.
- donw 8y ago
  Very true! It is difficult to understand what Good looks like until you experience it first-hand. Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. Unfortunately, Good requires infrastructure, both physical and cultural, that most organizations lack. It is also exceedingly difficult to parachute into an organization and introduce Good, as that change threatens the balance of political power. People will strongly oppose Good because it means that their jobs will change, and change is -- very honestly speaking! -- scary as hell.
  - _jal 8y ago
    Absolutely all true. > Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. I wish there were a magical way to give everyone a first job in a well-run org. I think the average corporate insanity quotient would noticeably drop if people knew what they were missing. I found my first job at a well-run firm in my late 20s, and consider myself lucky. But I also spent a bunch of really crappy time putting up with things I didn't know I didn't have to put up with before that.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
w_t_payne 8y ago
Following the links, I stumbled upon this amazing seeming resource: http://leadership.au.af.mil/sls-skil.htm http://leadership.au.af.mil/sls-skil.htm The military are really very very good at man-management ...
- sorokod 8y ago
  The military, from my experience, is a big burocratic organisation with generally substandard management culture.
  - frozenport 8y ago
    Can confirm, this is the organization that inspired Catch-22 The only thing its got going for it, is that everybody gets paid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22
  - donw 8y ago
    As opposed to most startups, which are tiny, unreliable organizations with a generally substandard management culture? Bad management is everywhere. Being able to do even a mediocre job at the scale of a major military is still not entirely unimpressive.
  - mieseratte 8y ago
    I believe the idea is more so to grasp at the underlying philosophies behind what is taught as an ideal to, say, infantry leadership, as opposed to merely copying bureaucratic institutions and styles. The US military is a first-rate logistics and fighting force with a lot of hard-won lessons, wisdom that is sometimes even written in blood. At the end of the day, it's really just a good place to start thinking. You'll find great bits, and parts that are completely irrelevant to a civilian workplace. After all, it's not as if I can smoke my team when they fail to meet a deadline or engage in some "physical correction."
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    There may be tons of examples of substandard bureaucracy in the military, but that shouldn't detract from the smattering of great leaders within the ranks. Some of the best advice I've ever been given for surviving adult life was advice my father cribbed from officer training in the army.
antoncohen 8y ago
Along those lines, I highly recommend "Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Especially the audiobook, as it is narrated by the authors. In each chapter one of the authors tells a first person account of leadership on the battlefield, then they go on to relate that to business leadership with specific examples from their business consultations. Very engaging, and I think the leadership lessons they teach spot-on. https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs/dp/B015TM0RM4 https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs/dp/B...
CSMastermind 8y ago
You should really check out Simon Senik's new book [Leaders Eat Last](https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591845327/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1...). It's essentially Marine Corp leadership philosophy distilled fitted to business scenarios.
adamdrake 8y ago
Military organizations have been studying how to lead people under a variety of conditions since effectively the dawn of time. Many people make the mistake of fetishizing military leadership, but I absolutely thing there is a lot to be learned by studying the techniques of the organizations that have been building leadership skills the longest. I talked a bit about this https://adamdrake.com/command-and-control.html https://adamdrake.com/command-and-control.html and some of the misunderstandings that companies have when it comes to leading people.

cirgue 8y ago

'Painfully obvious' can sometimes completely non-obvious when you're in an environment where bad habits, political bs, and other human weirdness dominate the patterns of interaction. This is true for most organizations.

donw 8y ago
Very true! It is difficult to understand what Good looks like until you experience it first-hand. Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. Unfortunately, Good requires infrastructure, both physical and cultural, that most organizations lack. It is also exceedingly difficult to parachute into an organization and introduce Good, as that change threatens the balance of political power. People will strongly oppose Good because it means that their jobs will change, and change is -- very honestly speaking! -- scary as hell.
- _jal 8y ago
  Absolutely all true. > Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. I wish there were a magical way to give everyone a first job in a well-run org. I think the average corporate insanity quotient would noticeably drop if people knew what they were missing. I found my first job at a well-run firm in my late 20s, and consider myself lucky. But I also spent a bunch of really crappy time putting up with things I didn't know I didn't have to put up with before that.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

w_t_payne 8y ago

Following the links, I stumbled upon this amazing seeming resource: http://leadership.au.af.mil/sls-skil.htm http://leadership.au.af.mil/sls-skil.htm The military are really very very good at man-management ...

sorokod 8y ago
The military, from my experience, is a big burocratic organisation with generally substandard management culture.
- frozenport 8y ago
  Can confirm, this is the organization that inspired Catch-22 The only thing its got going for it, is that everybody gets paid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22
- donw 8y ago
  As opposed to most startups, which are tiny, unreliable organizations with a generally substandard management culture? Bad management is everywhere. Being able to do even a mediocre job at the scale of a major military is still not entirely unimpressive.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  I believe the idea is more so to grasp at the underlying philosophies behind what is taught as an ideal to, say, infantry leadership, as opposed to merely copying bureaucratic institutions and styles. The US military is a first-rate logistics and fighting force with a lot of hard-won lessons, wisdom that is sometimes even written in blood. At the end of the day, it's really just a good place to start thinking. You'll find great bits, and parts that are completely irrelevant to a civilian workplace. After all, it's not as if I can smoke my team when they fail to meet a deadline or engage in some "physical correction."
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  There may be tons of examples of substandard bureaucracy in the military, but that shouldn't detract from the smattering of great leaders within the ranks. Some of the best advice I've ever been given for surviving adult life was advice my father cribbed from officer training in the army.

antoncohen 8y ago

Along those lines, I highly recommend "Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Especially the audiobook, as it is narrated by the authors. In each chapter one of the authors tells a first person account of leadership on the battlefield, then they go on to relate that to business leadership with specific examples from their business consultations. Very engaging, and I think the leadership lessons they teach spot-on. https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs/dp/B015TM0RM4 https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs/dp/B...

CSMastermind 8y ago

You should really check out Simon Senik's new book [Leaders Eat Last](https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591845327/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1...). It's essentially Marine Corp leadership philosophy distilled fitted to business scenarios.

adamdrake 8y ago

Military organizations have been studying how to lead people under a variety of conditions since effectively the dawn of time. Many people make the mistake of fetishizing military leadership, but I absolutely thing there is a lot to be learned by studying the techniques of the organizations that have been building leadership skills the longest. I talked a bit about this https://adamdrake.com/command-and-control.html https://adamdrake.com/command-and-control.html and some of the misunderstandings that companies have when it comes to leading people.