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Was he really an a-hole? It's hard for many people to fathom different environments, but sports, sometimes startups, the Army for example ... different communi

• the_jeremy 6y ago
  That is... not the take I'd expect on military effectiveness. I think there is are good reasons the private sector doesn't emulate the military in command structure. I know I am more productive with an understanding manager than being screamed at, and I am more efficient with a manager who values my ideas and encourages taking risks than one who forces me to do things exactly by the book. Admittedly, I don't have military experience, but it seems like it's more akin to a manager I would hate to have than one who would help me grow.
  • knolax 6y ago
    There's a reason the military contracts out most of their R&D.
  • jariel 6y ago
    This is an understandable position, but one that does not quite grasp at why the military communicates the way it does. It's almost entirely not 'yelling and screaming' this is something that exists in basic training, or maybe in the movies. The military is excruciatingly more operationally effective than the nearest civilian entity for the things that it is designed to do. For most of the things the forces do, there are barely any civilian counterparts that could even contemplate the job. That said, for a whole host of regular, garrison tasks, the military is probably the least suited. I'm thinking of peacetime IT services, etc.. For example, if you want a field hospital built with 100-400 beds? It can basically be done anywhere, almost instantly. Aside from the operational limitations of most civilians entities (i.e. they don't have easy access to Chinooks), it would take them months, and/or extraordinary complexity and expense. The COVID hospital beds were coming in at $500K each, which is massive money required to overcome the extreme inefficiency we have normally in that area. The same thing for an airfield, for example, the Air Force Engineers are ridiculous, they will build an airstrip, anywhere, in no time and have operationalized flights in and out ... like in the jungle or Himalayas. A few things that make it different: 1) It's existential. It's the most dramatically 'real' operating environment one can imagine, both in terms of one's own life, but also the lives of others, civilians (both sides) and in many ways the ultimate consequence of entire nations being ruined/turned upside down. This is hard to grasp until one has lived in that world, it's very 'heavy' and I think the issue that weighs down service members psychologically over time. Your civilian buddies are having a 'good life' but many service members cannot escape the heavy consequences of their daily lives. Can you imagine having to coddle a group of Engineers, balance personalities, staff reviews, people demanding 'more money and promotions', internal culture wars etc. when the 'build going out' is really a 'sortie' in support of some ground forces under fire? No. When the consequences are much bigger, and people realize this, they start to change their tune. 2) It's the most egoless job. This subject pains me the most, especially when I hear civilians talking about service people in a negative light when they see violence in particular. The level of selfless dedication in the service is incomparable. Though some individuals might be drawn in by salary or 'cheap college' it's basically impossible to continue to motivate oneself on that basis. It's the hardest work you'll ever have to do, with by far the least pay. It's ultra communitarian. On operation and in the field, even money becomes an abstract concept, almost irrelevant. You'll see regular people, coming together, putting aside their petty, selfish desires, doing their absolute best, and it's just remarkable. Sad to say but it really brings out the best in people. Having a limited military experience, it pains me that most people have no idea how self-oriented the civilian world is, and though we are all capable of greatness, it's very rare that we are in conditions such that we see this come to the fore. We're seeing it to some extent now with COVID. In terms of what might be perceived to be 'ugly communication' but which really is not, consider that rank and role become a function of group need and not individual desire. You play some role, ostensibly because you are trained and suited to it, not because you are 'competing with others for the best pay'. You 'respect the rank not necessarily the person' which means an internalized understanding that it's not 'some petty ego bossing you around', rather, it's someone communicating the group needs that they are very legitimately authorized to do, and it's your job to understand and execute well. It's your team's responsibility to act in kind. Sometimes you're leading, sometimes you're following, you may go up and down in power depending on the situation, everyone is just 'playing a role on the team'. Obviously, most things in the military are done on an operational, time-constrained basis, and in the field, it's not academic, it's execution-oriented. So if your 'Michael Jordan' boss was getting intense, there probably was a very legit reason. "Hey, listen up, there is a company-sized group of Taliban on patrol less than 1km away fro this waterworks we are building, so we need to A, B, and C and don't f* it up". It doesn't seem so 'a&&holish' in that context. So in a 'very legitimately authoritative, time-constrained environment with very high stakes' people learn to communicate fairly plainly and effectively, which means there are no expectations of coddling or need for emotional empathy because that would an unprofessional expectation. The 'yelling' might happen in basic training, but outside of that, it would generally happen in scenarios where you might expect it to happen, and it's not something that would upset most. Finally, I would say that most in the service are absolutely not blind automatons. While operationally, there tends not to be a lot of back and forth, the focus really is on mission orientation, and always so much the details. It's initially micromanaged, but once in the field, most commanders have immense latitude and this implies a kind of 'out of the box' thinking one might not expect. Even for the tiniest, smallest mission of 'taking a machine bun position' - no two approaches are even the same, they vary wildly and success depends on the training and operational intelligence of the team. On a bigger scale, your 'mission' may be to build a bridge by a certain time, at this location so the 5th cavalry can cross a river and join the rearguard or whatever. You'd actually have a tremendous degree in latitude in pulling that off, and in some ways, the only thing that matters is that the bridge gets built and all other things are kind of secondary. You may not have a 'long strategic back and forth with your manager', but these are generally not the types of conditions that call for this kind of communication. In fact, depending on the circumstance, you would have more 'latitude' in building that bridge than is maybe even comprehensible to most: you may have to knock down buildings, power lines, infrastructure, you may have to call in support, you may have to draw a lot of blood to get that thing built. All the regular, civil aspects of our lives, things like 'driving down the right side of the road' or 'social rules about private property' go out the window, the only thing remaining is the chain of command, the communications and the mission. Sorry for that long diatribe, but it's an interesting subject that depends almost entirely on perspective, which is to say seeing the world through an entirely different lens wherein different operating modes become more obvious.