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I find this article... strange. Near the beginning, it talks about widespread mutiny in Vietnam, and attributes it to the reward system: "What did the man at th

I find this article... strange. Near the beginning, it talks about widespread mutiny in Vietnam, and attributes it to the reward system: "What did the man at the bottom want? To go home. And when did he get to go home? When his tour of duty was over! This was the case whether or not the war was won." So, in other words, the war was lost because management did not properly align incentives for soldiers with desired outcomes? I find the following article more persuasive: https://libcom.org/history/1961-1973-gi-resistance-in-the-vietnam-war https://libcom.org/history/1961-1973-gi-resistance-in-the-vi... It identifies three important factors for the same phenomenon: -- First, that new recruits discovered immediately that their recruiters had lied to them: "Guarantees of special training and choice assignments were simply swept away." -- Secondly, for the many Black GI's, a growing consciousness of their own oppression within American society. -- And, finally, the sheer futility and meaninglessness of the war itself: "a seemingly endless ground war against an often invisible enemy, with the mass of people often openly hostile, in support of a government both unpopular and corrupt." In my opinion, the article overstates the importance of management. I work as a tenured professor at a research university -- another profession discussed in the article. Frankly, there are few rewards or disincentives for behavior of any sort -- at least not of the sort that come from my bosses. And yet I do a good job anyway, for the simple reason that I believe my job is worth doing well.

jacobr1 6y ago
> I work as a tenured professor at a research university Isn't the reward tenure itself? And it requires you to put in enough effort for your department to consider to approve you. Behavior that would prevent approval is implicitly discouraged (might be certain views held academic or not, or pedagogical approaches) and requirements (publishing, funding brought in, student feedback, favor your peers) depending on the department and field. > And yet I do a good job anyway, for the simple reason that I believe my job is worth doing well. Once tenured, you've already been selected for the traits that are desired in the role and proven your ability to execute them well.
- stepstop 6y ago
  > Once tenured, you've already been selected for the traits that are desired in the role and proven your ability to execute them well. I agree that the OP has a bit of self-selection bias. Similar to the “why don’t you go to college and get a real job. I did that, so can you” that internalizes the success while ignoring externalities
  - geofft 6y ago
    I don't think OP is saying "I got tenure, why can't you go through the same process" or anything, I think they're saying "I got tenure, and having been tenured I continue to do good work because of intrinsic motivation and not management-driven incentives, I think we should extend this level of autonomy to everyone and get rid of the barriers to having a tenure-style job."
  - impendia 6y ago
    I am a bit confused; what is your criticism? My only real point is that my job performance is mostly independent from what my superiors incentivize or hope to see. Imagining myself as a soldier in WWII, I would like to think that I would have been motivated less by whatever my commanders incentivized, and more by the prospect of beating Hitler. Whereas, in Vietnam, I can't see any motivating large-scale goal or purpose. I think that Art Hoppe summed up the prevailing sentiment in his 1971 newspaper column: "I don't give a damn anymore who wins the day." That said, hindsight is 20-20, and my argument is totally hypothetical: I have never been in any situation even remotely similar to war.
- impendia 6y ago
  It's certainly true that incentives matter a lot before tenure. Unfortunately, there are some tenured faculty that accomplish little. I, and some of my colleagues, have pushed for there to be more incentives and disincentives, mostly without success. But we continue to work hard anyway.
kazinator 6y ago
> So, in other words, the war was lost because management did not properly align incentives for soldiers with desired outcomes? The article doesn't posit any reasons why that war was lost, only that the goals pursued by the mutinous soldiers, due to the actually rewarded behavior, were not aligned with the administration's goal of winning. It could be that the war was intractable regardless, but widespread mutiny hardly contributes to victory.

jacobr1 6y ago

> I work as a tenured professor at a research university Isn't the reward tenure itself? And it requires you to put in enough effort for your department to consider to approve you. Behavior that would prevent approval is implicitly discouraged (might be certain views held academic or not, or pedagogical approaches) and requirements (publishing, funding brought in, student feedback, favor your peers) depending on the department and field. > And yet I do a good job anyway, for the simple reason that I believe my job is worth doing well. Once tenured, you've already been selected for the traits that are desired in the role and proven your ability to execute them well.

stepstop 6y ago
> Once tenured, you've already been selected for the traits that are desired in the role and proven your ability to execute them well. I agree that the OP has a bit of self-selection bias. Similar to the “why don’t you go to college and get a real job. I did that, so can you” that internalizes the success while ignoring externalities
- geofft 6y ago
  I don't think OP is saying "I got tenure, why can't you go through the same process" or anything, I think they're saying "I got tenure, and having been tenured I continue to do good work because of intrinsic motivation and not management-driven incentives, I think we should extend this level of autonomy to everyone and get rid of the barriers to having a tenure-style job."
- impendia 6y ago
  I am a bit confused; what is your criticism? My only real point is that my job performance is mostly independent from what my superiors incentivize or hope to see. Imagining myself as a soldier in WWII, I would like to think that I would have been motivated less by whatever my commanders incentivized, and more by the prospect of beating Hitler. Whereas, in Vietnam, I can't see any motivating large-scale goal or purpose. I think that Art Hoppe summed up the prevailing sentiment in his 1971 newspaper column: "I don't give a damn anymore who wins the day." That said, hindsight is 20-20, and my argument is totally hypothetical: I have never been in any situation even remotely similar to war.
impendia 6y ago
It's certainly true that incentives matter a lot before tenure. Unfortunately, there are some tenured faculty that accomplish little. I, and some of my colleagues, have pushed for there to be more incentives and disincentives, mostly without success. But we continue to work hard anyway.

kazinator 6y ago

> So, in other words, the war was lost because management did not properly align incentives for soldiers with desired outcomes? The article doesn't posit any reasons why that war was lost, only that the goals pursued by the mutinous soldiers, due to the actually rewarded behavior, were not aligned with the administration's goal of winning. It could be that the war was intractable regardless, but widespread mutiny hardly contributes to victory.