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Arranged marriages are remarkably successful. People are really good at falling in love given the right context clues. Similarly, team-building exercises can b

Arranged marriages are remarkably successful. People are really good at falling in love given the right context clues. Similarly, team-building exercises can be stunningly effective. The military takes a couple months to make you willing to sacrifice your life for a group of what were recently strangers.

cema 15y ago
The military takes a couple months to make you willing to sacrifice your life for a group of what were recently strangers. My experience is completely opposite. Perhaps I was in a wrong military (I was: USSR, mid-1980s), mandatory conscription, culture clash. Mandatory conscription is similar to arranged marriages, but not to how jobs are staffed, so the analogy may not hold here. In case my management decides to do this kind of team-building exercise, I think I would be willing to give them benefit of doubt, but the very cheesiness of it all will likely wear me out before I give up and call it bullshit. Conflict with the management will then be almost inevitable. The opposite of team building! Maybe it is just me; I see comments that sound positive.
- roel_v 15y ago
  Conscripts are not at all like 'proper' soldiers. Conscripts are just there to sit out their time. You can't compare that to training professional, actual combat-ready soldiers (i.e., not truck drivers and radio operators - although of course they all go through the same basic training. The amount of time that is put into taking away individual identify and replacing it with a group mentality in combat troops like e.g. US Marines or Foreign Legion legionnaires is huge (from what I know of reading books and watching TV - it's not like really know anything about this).
  - cema 15y ago
    Conscripts are not at all like 'proper' soldiers. Conscripts are just there to sit out their time. The soldier is sleeping, the service is going on. Of course. And yet, that's how most of the armies of the world are. That how the US army was, to a large extent, during the Vietnam war. (But also during WWII.) I spent two years of service performing mostly bullshit tasks (or doing nothing). When I was in training I received some kind of basic education of driving, uh, amphibious transporter medium - modified (ПТС-М, плавающий транспортёр средний - модифицированный). Was kind of fun. All right, it's completely off-topic now.
sliverstorm 15y ago
It would be interesting to compare the two. I imagine the foundations of affection in an arranged marriage that turns out well are based on different things than most marriages today. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say an "Us against the world, for better or worse, whether we like it or not". That's a classic foundation for strong relationships.
sbochins 15y ago
I'm not sure by what is your criteria for arranged marriages being successful. Is it because there are less divorces? The reason for that is probably because divorces are extremely taboo or illegal in the places that have have arranged marriages. As for the sacrificing in the military. Some of that has to do with the kind of people that want to join the military (a very small portion of the US population). Also from chats with family and friends that have done service, they did not feel like their "buddies" would be willing to sacrifice themselves for them.
- rdtsc 15y ago
  It seems that an easy team building process is to just identify an out-group. Make an "us" vs "them" scenario. That kind of stuff appeals to the primitive part of the brain and is quite effective. Improperly defining that can be dangerous. It can create too much adversity in the workplace where teams spend more energy thinking how to beat the other team vs how to improve the product (sometimes the two goals are not equivalent). I guess it is a bit safer to identify the competitors as "them" but in a niche market people always jump ship and all the negative attitudes and comments end up finally being exposed.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  they did not feel like their "buddies" would be willing to sacrifice themselves for them. Out of curiosity, were they in the front lines? There's plenty of jobs in the armed forces I could see that camaraderie never forming, particularly more bureaucratic sections.

cema 15y ago

The military takes a couple months to make you willing to sacrifice your life for a group of what were recently strangers. My experience is completely opposite. Perhaps I was in a wrong military (I was: USSR, mid-1980s), mandatory conscription, culture clash. Mandatory conscription is similar to arranged marriages, but not to how jobs are staffed, so the analogy may not hold here. In case my management decides to do this kind of team-building exercise, I think I would be willing to give them benefit of doubt, but the very cheesiness of it all will likely wear me out before I give up and call it bullshit. Conflict with the management will then be almost inevitable. The opposite of team building! Maybe it is just me; I see comments that sound positive.

roel_v 15y ago
Conscripts are not at all like 'proper' soldiers. Conscripts are just there to sit out their time. You can't compare that to training professional, actual combat-ready soldiers (i.e., not truck drivers and radio operators - although of course they all go through the same basic training. The amount of time that is put into taking away individual identify and replacing it with a group mentality in combat troops like e.g. US Marines or Foreign Legion legionnaires is huge (from what I know of reading books and watching TV - it's not like really know anything about this).
- cema 15y ago
  Conscripts are not at all like 'proper' soldiers. Conscripts are just there to sit out their time. The soldier is sleeping, the service is going on. Of course. And yet, that's how most of the armies of the world are. That how the US army was, to a large extent, during the Vietnam war. (But also during WWII.) I spent two years of service performing mostly bullshit tasks (or doing nothing). When I was in training I received some kind of basic education of driving, uh, amphibious transporter medium - modified (ПТС-М, плавающий транспортёр средний - модифицированный). Was kind of fun. All right, it's completely off-topic now.

sliverstorm 15y ago

It would be interesting to compare the two. I imagine the foundations of affection in an arranged marriage that turns out well are based on different things than most marriages today. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say an "Us against the world, for better or worse, whether we like it or not". That's a classic foundation for strong relationships.

sbochins 15y ago

I'm not sure by what is your criteria for arranged marriages being successful. Is it because there are less divorces? The reason for that is probably because divorces are extremely taboo or illegal in the places that have have arranged marriages. As for the sacrificing in the military. Some of that has to do with the kind of people that want to join the military (a very small portion of the US population). Also from chats with family and friends that have done service, they did not feel like their "buddies" would be willing to sacrifice themselves for them.

rdtsc 15y ago
It seems that an easy team building process is to just identify an out-group. Make an "us" vs "them" scenario. That kind of stuff appeals to the primitive part of the brain and is quite effective. Improperly defining that can be dangerous. It can create too much adversity in the workplace where teams spend more energy thinking how to beat the other team vs how to improve the product (sometimes the two goals are not equivalent). I guess it is a bit safer to identify the competitors as "them" but in a niche market people always jump ship and all the negative attitudes and comments end up finally being exposed.
sliverstorm 15y ago
they did not feel like their "buddies" would be willing to sacrifice themselves for them. Out of curiosity, were they in the front lines? There's plenty of jobs in the armed forces I could see that camaraderie never forming, particularly more bureaucratic sections.