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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 mili

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.
drblast 8y ago
This seems to be the impression in the business world, which has what I can only describe as a fetish for stories about the military, but Marines in particular have a very tough time adapting to life and careers outside the military. It's fun to think of our businesses as just like a Seal team and try to glean lessons from stories of heroism, but the reality is if the military were in the business of making a profit, retaining employees, or pleasing customers, it would fail miserably. The reality of the U.S military is far different than the impression that the leadership papers give you.
- rxhernandez 8y ago
  > the reality is if the military were in the business of making a profit, retaining employees, or pleasing customers, it would fail miserably. Is that because of management issues or because of the intrinsic issues that come from being in the business of killing people to gain land, resources, power, or whatever?
  - KennyCason 8y ago
    As a former Marine, I can say it's a bit of both. Obviously, the job is stressful all in itself. While I did not go to combat myself, I have lost friends, I've delivered flags to families of Marines who fell in combat, and have also just had a lot of beers with friends who could not cope with some of the actions that they had to endure in combat. Secondly, management is certainly an issue like any other company. I won't go in lots of details here, but for half of my enlistment, I loved my leadership as they pushed me hard and helped me grow. They very clearly wanted to make me a better Marine and person. They were as close as family to me. They were very balanced. They knew when to be be hard, and when not to be. On the other hand, for the second half, It was the complete opposite and my time was miserable. I experienced similar things in the private industry, only with much less physical labor. :)
  - drblast 8y ago
    They're linked. When you are managing people who can legally be put in jail or shot for not following orders, the dynamic is quite different. Especially in the case of Marines, if you have a very well defined objective that requires brute force to solve, that's the ideal situation for them and they'll do amazing things. Anything that's a gray area, not covered by rules, or that requires creativity or questioning authority... It's not going to end in a good result. I can't count the number of times Marine officers did ridiculously inefficient or plain stupid things because an authority figure or regulation said so. Usually the justification was, "the rules are there for a reason," or something similar. Whole that might be true, the idea that someone in authority can, in advance, create a set of rules that we can blindly follow to a successful outcome is insane for all but the most desperate situations. Most of the military was like that to some extent.
codeonfire 8y ago
Management is easy when your employees have to go to prison for not obeying you and you can exact non-judicial punishment any time ou want.
- KennyCason 8y ago
  Not true. First, disobedience rarely results in jail. There are many intermediate forms of punishment. For example, losing rank, salary privileges, formal write ups, extra work responsibilities, etc. Also leaders tend to keep each other in check and are constantly being reviewed. If you're a bad leader in the military it is typically immediately apparent and gets changed at some point. Additionally, leaders are also in turn managed by other leaders. You're also not guaranteed promoted just because of your time-in-grade, especially not for higher ranks (e.g. E-5 and above). You also can't just transfer into the military with a high rank, meaning you have to work earn it and work your way up. It's not a full-proof system of course, but it does a great job. If you forced me to call out one exception, I would consider the officer path to be a shortcut to leadership, though they are typically required to go to college and extra training. But clearly, they don't have the military time-in-grade. But you're day-to-day is not really ran by officers, so it's not quite as relevant. (I'm speaking for the Marine Corps leadership as that's all I know first-hand.)
gadders 8y ago
This is the version for UK Army Officers in book form: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Serve_to_Lead.html?id=7Fy8oQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Serve_to_Lead.html?id...

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.

drblast 8y ago

This seems to be the impression in the business world, which has what I can only describe as a fetish for stories about the military, but Marines in particular have a very tough time adapting to life and careers outside the military. It's fun to think of our businesses as just like a Seal team and try to glean lessons from stories of heroism, but the reality is if the military were in the business of making a profit, retaining employees, or pleasing customers, it would fail miserably. The reality of the U.S military is far different than the impression that the leadership papers give you.

rxhernandez 8y ago
> the reality is if the military were in the business of making a profit, retaining employees, or pleasing customers, it would fail miserably. Is that because of management issues or because of the intrinsic issues that come from being in the business of killing people to gain land, resources, power, or whatever?
- KennyCason 8y ago
  As a former Marine, I can say it's a bit of both. Obviously, the job is stressful all in itself. While I did not go to combat myself, I have lost friends, I've delivered flags to families of Marines who fell in combat, and have also just had a lot of beers with friends who could not cope with some of the actions that they had to endure in combat. Secondly, management is certainly an issue like any other company. I won't go in lots of details here, but for half of my enlistment, I loved my leadership as they pushed me hard and helped me grow. They very clearly wanted to make me a better Marine and person. They were as close as family to me. They were very balanced. They knew when to be be hard, and when not to be. On the other hand, for the second half, It was the complete opposite and my time was miserable. I experienced similar things in the private industry, only with much less physical labor. :)
- drblast 8y ago
  They're linked. When you are managing people who can legally be put in jail or shot for not following orders, the dynamic is quite different. Especially in the case of Marines, if you have a very well defined objective that requires brute force to solve, that's the ideal situation for them and they'll do amazing things. Anything that's a gray area, not covered by rules, or that requires creativity or questioning authority... It's not going to end in a good result. I can't count the number of times Marine officers did ridiculously inefficient or plain stupid things because an authority figure or regulation said so. Usually the justification was, "the rules are there for a reason," or something similar. Whole that might be true, the idea that someone in authority can, in advance, create a set of rules that we can blindly follow to a successful outcome is insane for all but the most desperate situations. Most of the military was like that to some extent.

codeonfire 8y ago

Management is easy when your employees have to go to prison for not obeying you and you can exact non-judicial punishment any time ou want.

KennyCason 8y ago
Not true. First, disobedience rarely results in jail. There are many intermediate forms of punishment. For example, losing rank, salary privileges, formal write ups, extra work responsibilities, etc. Also leaders tend to keep each other in check and are constantly being reviewed. If you're a bad leader in the military it is typically immediately apparent and gets changed at some point. Additionally, leaders are also in turn managed by other leaders. You're also not guaranteed promoted just because of your time-in-grade, especially not for higher ranks (e.g. E-5 and above). You also can't just transfer into the military with a high rank, meaning you have to work earn it and work your way up. It's not a full-proof system of course, but it does a great job. If you forced me to call out one exception, I would consider the officer path to be a shortcut to leadership, though they are typically required to go to college and extra training. But clearly, they don't have the military time-in-grade. But you're day-to-day is not really ran by officers, so it's not quite as relevant. (I'm speaking for the Marine Corps leadership as that's all I know first-hand.)

gadders 8y ago

This is the version for UK Army Officers in book form: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Serve_to_Lead.html?id=7Fy8oQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Serve_to_Lead.html?id...