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>“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities
by nabla9 4y ago
>“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the
industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses
two of these qualities.
>Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General
Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are
stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the
highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental
clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious
must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.”
– Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ilamont 4y agoMy grandfather used to say "there are two types of people in the world: lifters and leaners." I was skeptical when I first heard it. I still question the many special cases or situations that fall somewhere in between. That said, the longer I live and work, the more I see (or hear of) the leaners ... and their enablers.
- groby_b 4y agoIndeed. And the worst part, leaning is contagious. At some point, good people start wondering why they should lift if everybody else is leaning. They either quit, or start coasting.
- arminiusreturns 4y agoNobody else is communicating or seems to give a shit, why should I? This is why bad leadership is so important to defend against. The degradation of productivity is viral.
- contingencies 4y agoNice one. Added to https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
- yomkippur 4y agoas a clever and lazy person this gives me lot of hope
- abeppu 4y ago... but in the military, it's generally not possible to 'fail up' into a similar role in another organization when things become uncomfortable. A clever lazy Prussian officer can't build out their resume for a couple years and then go work for the French, so they have to actually stick around and make those difficult decisions. Whereas in tech, it's not just possible but normalized to change companies with some frequency, and a lazy clever C-level exec may not stay around long enough to see the outcome of their difficult decisions.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoThere are more than enough positions in the military for officers to fail up for decades. They don't usually end up at the highest ranks, but it happens. Often the path upwards is to be hired by a defense contractor, oil company, financial company. Usually it's a reward for getting a specific company a nice contract and the promise of good connections/lobbying.
- buscoquadnary 4y agoHe also put together the Schlieffen plan that led to Germany wagining a 2 front war against superior adversaries that had time tables planned down to the hour that ended up not taking in to account numerous factors that ended up leading to the most horrible experiences in human history.
- nabla9 4y agobuscoquadnary, you are confusing two generals. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800-1891) and Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (1848-1916)