Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal speaks at West Point about how succeeding in an increasingly complex world, particularly at war, requires new types of organization-flat, networked, and built to share information.
Only one very important remark was missing. All of the people in the organisation were already proven elite individuals with exceptional personal discipline and sense of mission to do what is needed to get the job done. The organisation to the detail was exceptional. Now think about applying this system to a civilian company and ask them to adapt and learn a new management and communications structure. The average civilian shirks responsibility and dodges work. Unless supervised a civilian office would fall apart. Brilliant presentation though.
Agreed, being a civilian in Business Management at the Director level (Sales) I always try to staff the very best and highly motivated sales team members, paying them top dollar within budget. One you have that overlaying a plan that is flat, networked, and built to share information per above always works for me and brings great results for the company.
A training environment should be exactly the platform where experiments should be carried out, rather just the inflexible indoctrination. Learning to think and creating different systems within which to think, that is likely to have wide application in future.
sending a civilian woman into a house to check if its booby-trapped because you 'don't want to risk the dog'... yeah that's normal - I suppose that's what I should expect
In boot camp the recruits are told to take orders without question or there will be consequences. The habit is born and is set in stone. Soldiers would be afraid to upstage their leaders. Formal education is no substitute for a great thinker. The army has great leaders with little rank. A soldier that comes to mind is Timothy McVeigh. I don't condone what he did but one soldier did a lot of damage.
