Bear with me for a few paragraphs, for I need to lay a foundation for my point, before I dive it.

I’ll admit, the public discourse is wearing me out. Quite honestly, it sickens me to listen to talking head after talking head, or products of the American public education system of the last two decades respond to serious questions with what their opinion is. I don’t want an opinion when there’s truth to be had. The public educational system, however, has convinced people they need to respond to their feelings.

Hence, idiotic polls by agencies like CBS with this report as the outcome: “Poll: A Split On Confronting Terrorism”. About a year ago, i spent some valuable time blogging about the difference between truth and an opinion. It’s in the junior blog somewhere, and it applies here, but I don’t have the motivation to dig it up just now.

Of course there will be differences of opinions in how to execute a war fighting strategy and, in lower levels, tactics of same will be addressed.

Peopel with high school educations feel empowered to call into talk shows and tell people who spend a better part of their waking hours studying the issues, and try to tell the host that the President is killing innocent people, he knew there were no WMD and he sent popel there anyway.

Give.me.a.break. I didn’t have my “awakening” until the taxpayers sent me to 9 months of Command and Staff college. Not to say everyone needs an MA to speak on the topic, but it would be nice if they bothered to pull the iPod ear pieces out of their ears during the waking hours and took some time at the public library or local meag bookstore, doing some reading on the topic, before pretending they know what’s going on. I wish they’d do the wise thing and recuse themselves, much as is done in the legal system, if you are in a position to bias the outcome because of what you do/do not know.

My evidence is shown here, from the CBS article:

THE U.S. WILL BE SAFER FROM TERRORISM IF IT…

Confronts terror groups and states in the Mideast: 47%
Stays out of other countries’ affairs in Mideast: 45%

Just what, pray tell, do these valient individuals base their response on?

Which brings me to another point of ranting: Why can’t our leaders do it, if the other leaders are (or the reverse case)? A few days ago, the President mentioned, to a group at a meeting that he wondered if the US was going to have a 3rd awakening. This drew comments from the press, and they feigned fear of a “theocratic” government. Frst off, people need to chill out. Second off: Presidents of Iran and Venezuela stood before the world and prayed, one in the style of his Catholic heritage, the other in the Islamic faith. Not a peep out of the press, in fact, it looks like it was purposely ignored, so the press could always claim “plausible deniability” for the time being.

Now, get this:

IN TREATMENT OF POWs, THE U.S. SHOULD…

Follow international agreements: 63%
Do what it thinks right, regardless of what other nations think: 32%

News flash: We are treating “POWs” (defined therein in the Geneva Coventions as military members of a nation). I wonder if they would choke in horror if they knew that illegal combatants (those who are not wearing said uniforms while engaging in combat) are subject to summary execution? I doubt it would happen, but the old line : “Be careful what you wish for comes to mind.” If DoD directed firing squads, the same 63% would howl, but it would only be a case of answering an importatnt question from their place of ignorance….I’m glad we have a man at the helm with more compassion and sense than to give them what they ask for, for they don’t know what it is.

As far as the part about worrying about what others think, it seems to be, in my experience and opinion, that those who got me to “outperform” my self-imposed standards didn’t get my love in several cases, until years later, when it became clear the value of their hard pressed teachings. Teachers, baseball, basketball and swim team coaches alike have had a place in my life in helping me achieve what was better, right and more successful. We didn’t get to where we are as a nation because we copied the Euorpean ways an means of governance and social interaction for a reason: It had failed our forefathers. And, in my great admiration, they did what today’s protestors of our government should do when persecuted: Pack ther possesions you hold dear and go and build the country you define by your protestations. It should be easy to figure out: Just don’t elect George Bush as your President and study him well, so you make sure whatever it is he does in a situation, you do the exact opposite, to remove any possible connection to the man you hate so much. Oh…in the stream of consciousness mode, this has great possibility for terrific satire potential, combined with analysis of what the most likely outcomes would be of no military, no oil, no greenhouse gas producing items, no aerosol powered deoderants, and only vegtables to eat, produced with the use of no pesticides…but I digress…

So…finally taking the long way around, the biggest bone I have to pick is those who act like they know what it is to be the final authority in matters of great gravity, the point of my title.
Read the rest of this entry »

Thought for the day:

“The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.” – Winston Churchill

Part XIII – Constructive Plagiarism

Short advertisement before the main feature: Valour-IT Project details are here. Help fund computers and software for wounded service members, so they can use vioce activated technology to send emails and write. A worthy cause if I every heard of one….Thanks for your interest.

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII: “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

Yep, that’s right…plagiarism. In any sort of management position, from the non-commissioned officer level to the top, we learn to scope out what the other person did/does in order to make our unit more effective. Is that bad? Well, certainly it’s not a bad idea in an environment where there is no copyrighted material or trademark issue to worry about.

In the “outside world,” this translates into a set of eyes and ears that can be constantly tuned into articles, news clips, conferences, or conversations that have something of interest. Toss into that mix that we generally have no shame about asking “can I get a copy of that?” because we see two positive fallouts of the condition at a personal level, beyond the larger implications of the benefit to our employer: 1) We look like a more valuable asset when we come back and either present it, or implement it and 2)it certainly shortnees the time it will take us to “re-invent the wheel.” You might call that being lazy. I see it as making more time available for other pursuits…:)

What dis this look like in my career (and emulated by just about anyone else): It was November, and we had a big inspection coming in mid-February. I had been in the billet for about 5 weeks and the CO asked for the Plan of Actions and Milestones (POA and M) for the upcoming major, shipwide inspection, INSURV. I paled, when I realized I hadn’t had one turned over by the outgoing XO, but I said “I’ll find out and get back to you, sir.” The first call I made was to the Squadron Material Officer, and he told me of the ship in the squadron who had had one recently and had done well. Next item was to see where this ship was. Luckily, it was not at sea, but right there a few piers away. I hiked over, introduced myself to the XO, and over a cup of coffee, asked for a copy of his POA and M. He had one copied and I was on my way back to the ship. The net result, we did very well, many thanks to the success of the other crew. We regularly spent time asking leading questions of our counterparts, looking for the “gouge” for all types of things, then we shared and things went well.

How does this play out in real life? Two very astute Naval Aviators retired and used their working knowledge of the Navy’s Tag Out system. In the OSHA/civilian terms, this is called “Lock out/Tag Out” and is a system by which you prevent people and equipment hazards while preforming maintenance by making sure everyone who needs to know knows not to turn things back on. The Navy system was developed after some hard lessons, but is very effective. By the way, it exceeds OSHA standards in it’s implementation. These two smart men are not for hire, as they created their own successful company. You can see their product line, TagLink, here.

In another case, as I worked with the PQS Development Group, they told me the story of a retired Navy Captain that came back to them and asked for some materials, so he could implement a personal qualification program for the company he worked for.

Bottom line: “We” look for ways to make business easier by borrowing ideas. The ex-military person can not only bring to you a wealth of ideas from the time in, but then they are acclimated to keeping their sensors out for more of the same in your industry. It’s a valuable resource for your company.

See Little Green Footballs for the Open Thread…

Another “THANKS!” to The Political Teen for an Open Post…

I found the below article via a Daily Read Board entry by Yankee Sailor.

Here it is.

Peachy!

“Durbin Offers Vets Apology for Remarks
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Jun 25, 11:12 PM (ET)

By JAN DENNIS

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) – U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin apologized to war veterans Saturday for his remarks earlier this month comparing interrogators at an American-run prison camp in Cuba to Nazis and other historically infamous regimes.”

I guess Dick Durbin thinks we fell off the cabbage truck yesterday, but does anyone else notice something completely disingenuous here?

“”I think when you’ve done something hurtful to people you have to stand up and say I’m sorry,” Durbin said at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Peoria, five days after he apologized for the comments on the Senate floor.”

Clue for Senator Durbin: You got that right, but what you got wrong is:

(Oh how I wish Sam Kinison was here right now and I could record him saying this)

“WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME, SENATOR DURBIN!”

Maybe Sneator Durbin should have listened more closely to the words spoken in the 2004 Presidential Campaign….

Why did you go to the VFW in Illinois to apoligize? Did you say anything on the floor of the Senate about how Americans service members in WWII, Korea, Vietnam or GWI acted like Nazis, or did I really miss the “revised and extended comments” you guys always make and pretend like you said something on the floor of the Senate Chamber, when you really never said it to any audience?

(Back to Sam Kinison initaion)

“IT WAS THE MEN AND WOMEN AT GTMO YOU INSULTED AND THEY ARE IN GTMO, HAVING FECES THROWN AT THEM, WITH TERRORISTS THREATENING TO KILL THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES, WHILE YOU HAVE A BEER WITH PEOPLE YOU DIDN’T INSULT!”

I’d really like to know, after all the “trips” you have taken on my tax dollars, Senator Durbin, why you couldn’t pick up the phone and ask for the United States Air Force to pick you up and fly you to Camp X-Ray, so you could humble yourself before the men and women who have shown remarkable restraint, unlike you, in the performance of their duties? You know they would have done that for you, despite their personal feelings. Our Air Force, like their Army MP counterparts at GTMO are professionals.

“Initially, Durbin refused to apologize, but he relented as the firestorm over his remarks continued.”

Yep, and so for my Kinisonion “WRONG TIME!” comment. Five days later? Did your staff sheild you from the reality of what the outcome of your actions on the Senate Floor, or did you plan to have it simmer in the public view for this long, to make sure it’s toxicity saturated deep enough?

“Durbin received a standing ovation from most of the crowd after his speech Saturday. Charlie Brimm, 55, said Durbin’s comments upset veterans, but most think his apologies are sincere.

“It took a pretty big man to come up in front of a veterans group after the comments he made just a week or so before,” said Brimm, a former state VFW commander and Army veteran of the Vietnam War.”

Open comment to Mr. Charlie Brimm:

Thank you for your service to our nation, but please do not accept what is not yours to take credit for. I think it took a lesser man to come before you, than to stand in the very presence of those he defamed before the world. By your acknowledgement of his “apology,” you give Senator Durbin a false seal of approval he will use to excuse his egregious behavior. You, sir, have been used for his political gain. I think you would have done more service to this country, to compliment your past service, by holding your applause and directing a comment to the speaker such as this:

“We veterans here in Peoria cannot accept this apology. It is not our place to do so. We were not there, we did not have a hand in the situation of which you spoke of on the floor of the Senate. We do know where the people are who are owed your words in person. They are our brothers and sisters in arms, across the ages, connected by the common experience of service to this country while wearing the uniform of the Armed Forces. Those who you have spoken ill of are stationed at Camp X-Ray, Gauntanamo Bay, Cuba. Go there and stand in their presence and apologize.”

Clue for the clueless: If you wrong someone, go to them and make amends. Surrogates are not acceptable if you are sincere. If you are using surrogates, then it’s clear what your motivation has been…

Consider the words of a great man:

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires a mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these things wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”

It is the calling to which the compassionate rise to….the young men and women who are serving around the world and stateside right now.

“The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country, the over civilized man, who has lost the great fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man, and the man of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty lift that thrills ‘stern men with empires on their brains’ – all these, or course, shrink from seeing the nation undertake its new duties; shrink from seeing us build a navy and an army adequate for our needs; shrink from seeing us do our share of the world’s work, by bringing order out of chaos…These are men who fear the strenuous life, who fear the only national life which is worth leading. They believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues in a nation, as it saps them in the individual; or else they are wedded to that base spirit of gain and greed which recognizes in commercialism the be-all and end-all of national life, instead of realizing that, though an indispensable element, it is, after all, but one of the many elements that go to make up true national greatness.”

We have too many timid, lazy and distrustful people. Huge houses, many cars, far too many vacations, and too much adoration showered on them, because they can get it right after multiple takes, among others. And don’t forget the manicured and properly dressed “talking heads” of the HBM, who think their job is not reporting but changing the world…

“A man’s first duty is to take his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the state; for if he fails in this second duty, it is under penalty of ceasing to be a freeman.”

For those who fail at the second duty, try this form of “math”: (SU)3…Do you value freedom more that personal comfort or the mirror image of that statement? Duty need not be running out the door of a C-17 to jump with the 82nd Airborne Division, it can come in many other forms, which are all part of serving the nation. I’d submit making a profession, or even avocation, of opposition and picking everything apart, particularly for the reason to be contrary, when you have no solutions does not qualify as serving any nation. The verb “to serve” requires action, not inaction.

“..and there should be no parlaying, no faltering, in dealing with our foe. As for those in our own country who encourage our foe, we can afford contemptuously to disregard them; but it must be remembered that their utterances are not saved from being treasonable merely by the fact that they are despicable.”

Congressman Durbin, are you listening to the wisdom of a great man? The “foe” certainly understands this. Maybe they read this speech and grabbed onto the calling.

“If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at the hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.”

Sounds like a warning of what will become if we hold back, put more importantly, if we pull back. Not that domination is the goal, but to ensure freedom becomes a common experience.

“Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods.”

Solution to the “problem:” (SU)3…Roll up your sleeves and get dirty to serve a higher calling that yourself.

“Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within and without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we will ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.”

I want this guy to “lead the charge.” He certainly has my vote. He speaks to those who want to back away from the GWoT, because it’s too hard, too messy, not “PC” to not blame America. He exhorts us to “do it” the right way, and to be sure of our reasoning.

He calls out those who would verbally “provide aid and comfort to the enemy” and uses the correct adjective for their action: Treasonous. Treason in war can be punished by death. That’s Federal law. Woodrow Wilson had a candidate who opposed him and made anti-War statements charged with sedition and, when convicted, he served 10 years in Federal Prison. I think Congressman Durbin should be making calls to Martha Stewart right about now.

Who gave this speech? Theodore Roosevelt, April 10th, 1899.

Leave with this thought:

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Amen to that….

I have plenty of “sea stories” about the E-7s, -8s, and -9s that made me look successful for 20 years. Most of them are uplifting and more than a few just plain humorous. Some are not so good, but I found out that incompetents, lazy, and slackers come in both genders, all colors and backgrounds. Conversely, dedicated, hard charging, make it happen people come in both genders and all colors and backgrounds. In both cases, there is no exclusivity.

When I was an XO, and we were on cruise, a few of the Chief Petty Officers were complaining to the Senior Chief Petty Officer of the Command (SCPOC) about how bad the junior officer were. Well, instead of the EMCS doing the “right thing,” and having a short “meeting” in the Goat Locker, where he would have read them the riot act and then handed them the solution, he came to me.

I enjoy solving problems. On the other hand, on a Persian Gulf deployment, being the Navigator, the second in command, and the guy who had to keep all the right balls in the air, I was sort of busy with the “big picture” stuff. When the SCPOC brought this one and dropped it in my lap, I was slightly annoyed, so I had called the meeting in the Goat Locker.

I didn’t yell, I didn’t throw anything around. I just provided them with this fact of life (or words to this effect):

“You know how you you have served with COs and XOs and department heads that really sucked and made your life miserable, because they didn’t know anything? Well, guess what? Their CPOS, when they were division officers failed to take them aside and train them, so you got stuck holding the bag.”

“Not only do you have my permission to bring your JO down here, close the door, put a cup of coffee, no, strike that, can of Coke, in their hands and tell them how life is, I actually expect you will do that, because that’s your job. If you don’t take the time to do it, you’ll just be stuck with them as department heads, XOs and COs who will make your life miserable and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

It sure seemed pretty clear to me how to solve the problem. Once more, I refer you back to one of my earliest posts about RDC Mac and his ensigns beginnings.

We need those senior enlisted to step up to the plate and form a bond with their “butter bars,” so the wisdom of real leadership can be passed on. We also need the “butter bars” to resist the urge to think they have a commission and therefore a corner on the knowledge market in the profession of arms. When this happens, we see a military that can slice and dice more bad guys before breakfast, than most other armed forces could do in a week.

Since we see this capability in action via the many blogs, I know there is this sort of “training” happening. Let’s hope the tradition stays with us.

A few “hall of fame” names of my enlisted mentors (in order of appearance):

OSC Michael P. MacCaffery
RMC Hansen
GMCM(SW) Don Dolance
STGCM(SW) David Frey
FTCS(SW) David Magnus
GSCS(SW) John “JC” Wiegman
GSMC(SW) John Graham
GSEC(SW) Denny Rohr
RMCM(SW) Rumbaugh
OSC(SW) Michael Bennett
GMCM(SW) David Cress

To swipe General Doolittle’s book title, I’ll just say, I could never be so lucky again, to have such great senior enlisted men who took the time to invest in me.

If Bill Clinton had had this lecture, he wouldn’t have needed to risk the freedom of Sandy Berger….

We know Sandy accidentally stuffed his pants and socks with National secrets, just before the 9-11 Hearings. When I saw this quoted email from Buzz Patterson, author of “Dereliction of Duty” (a fine read, by the way), and Buzz’s remarks about it wasn’t about the documents themselves, but the handwritten notes on the margins. He is so correct. We can only surmise why the followers of Clinton didn’t want that on the street.

It was back in 1987, and we had returned from a major fleet exercise a few days before. While we had been at sea, there was a change of command, and the incoming commodore of our destroyer squadron was Capt Joe Lopez. It was our first time back in the office (somewhere we didn’t get to visit very often) and he walked out of his office, holding a naval message in his hand. Since we were still feeling him out, and he us, it got quiet.

What Joe Lopez said next has stuck with me since that day. It went something like this:

“Gentlemen, we may make our jokes and derogatory comments about the units we work with at times, but those things should be kept among us.” He held the message up facing us, and there were some handwritten remarks in the margins. He didn’t tell us what it was, but in this context, that wasn’t important.

“We have people from our units and other places that come in here regularly to meet with us. How would you feel if you walked in here, as one of the ship’s company of a unit of ours, and saw something about your ship written on a message sitting on one of the desks in here?”

“If something needs to be written on a document, make it factual and professional. That way, you’ll never be called upon to explain something you regret writing.”

He didn’t have to say any more, the point was quickly grasped.

Part IX – “Give a smart person with potential a chance”

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

This post can be best categorized by calling it “Give a smart person with potential a chance.”

This part of the series is a little bit of the reverse side of the equation. It’s a topic that I think merits being brought forward and it’s about how the military’s hiring system has a specific method of recruiting to other major corporations. It might do well for the civilian sector to consider this.

My experience is that there are few places, outside of the military and military contractors, that take more than a passing consideration in hiring someone who doesn’t hold the specific “tickets” for a position. After leaving the military and working for a two contractors, I went out and tried to run my own business for a while. I realized I needed to head back into the work force, and as a result, I applied to many jobs that I had the hands on experience to fill. Since I had a degree in hard science, and not engineering or computers, I didn’t get the phone calls. Since then, I have found two good friends who have been recruiters for years and they confirmed my suspicions. If I didn’t have the degrees, I wasn’t going to get a call. I had lots of hands on, in and out of the military, but that didn’t count.

Consider this: The US Military is one of the few places that looks at the potential of people and, based on their aptitude at fundamental skills, they are then accepted and trained. In industry, it’s basically if you haven’t got the experience, you can’t play. It’s a catch 22 for people trying to enter a new field, either for a first time job, or to change career fields. I suspect a lot of great people never get where they can do the most good, because they didn’t have some diploma from a recognized school. I don’t mean employers should wantonly accept anyone, but it may be prudent to consider those who have spent the time doing the work, without the benefit of schooling, and who are successful, for filling some positions.

Another story from my effort at being a headhunter involves the story of a major bank, that relented and let a Marine Major join the company. In short order, they were amazed at how productive he was. In addition, his calm demeanor, in what was perceived as chaos to the bank employees, was noted. Think about it: After being trained as a Marine, what can possibly be a chaos anymore? They wanted more like him, having seen a glimpse of what an ex-service member could do, even without the “training.”

The ASVAB battery of tests, and the AFQT exams are some of the basic skills tests the military uses. The ASVAB is for general skills, and the AFQT is for fitness to be accepted into a flying billet. From tests like this, many people have successfully performed incredibly complex duties, under incredibly difficult circumstances. Granted, the military also has an extremely well developed training capability, in order that those with the aptitude can then be provided with the actual specific skills necessary. This overhead of the training commands is a large expense, but it is a proven process.

It boggles the mind to realize many of these young people who get through this would probably be rejected by major corporations, for a lack of capability, due to not having the experience.

Think about it, potential employer, can you ask some questions that prove a basic aptitude for the position, and also to assess the ability of that person to absorb the information? If you can do that, you may just find an enthusiastic employee, that a few years down the road, has proven themselves to be able to outperform that person who showed up with only the certificate saying they knew something, but had no other life experience.

Part VIII – Communications in the Workplace

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

Communications in the Workplace is the topic of this post. The military engenders a different sort of work communications ethic. In any service, in any place, there is an undercurrent, unspoken, yet allowed for, that at any moment, any one may not be there to pull their share of the work load. Most people will not leave a unit due to a medical casualty, but they all will leave. Whether it is at the end of active obligated service (EAOS), or to transfer to another unit, people will come and go. The reason this work ethic is different, is the essential need for the unit to continue its mission with greatest efficiency, regardless of who is there, or not.

Side note: At one level, it’s a pretty interesting system that can plan out a year or so in advance, as to who will be where, what training they may receive (or not) enroute to join a unit, and also, a similar time out, who is being replaced. More often than not, this is the normal cycle of events.

Subconsciously for many units, but most importantly the ones directly linked to potential combat service, the loss of a person, whether a leader or a junior team member, there is the understanding the change may take place in the blink of an eye. The people one step up and one step down from that person need to be able to fill the gap and make things happen.

What this does is give service members a work ethic of keeping things organized, and keeping the people around them “briefed in” as to what they do, where the files are, who to call in this and that situation, etc, etc, etc. This mindset, is very necessary for the survival of the unit. It differs from the civilian workplace. It keeps a unit up to speed, which translates into efficiency in pretty much anything they do.

But.it exposes to the people around you how you get the job done. In the outside world, this mode of operation seems that is a scary thing. If you let someone around you know the real detail of your job on the “outside,” you take the risk of them being able to show they can perform your job, and therefore, make a pitch to management to move you along the path, which may take you to the door. Personally, I don’t think that ends up being as fun in execution, as it sounds. You send a knowledgeable person packing, and guess who gets to take up the slack?

While your ex-military people may seem like they want to find out too much, its merely that defensive mechanism showing up, that allowed units to be so successful. Keeping your staff “briefed in” on the business of the business makes them more efficient.

The lessons of this was taught to me most clearly when I worked for Captain Pete Bulkeley. Pete was the son of Admiral Bulkeley, who, as a young Lieutenant, took General MacArthur out of the Philippines on his PT boat in 1942. His nickname was the Sea Wolf. Quite a man, who served the Navy for many years, even after retirement, but that’s another story for another post.

Anyhow, I was assigned to a mobile training team unit, and well we were pretty well staffed, and on shore duty, I might add, we mostly all lived out of a suitcase, traveling the east coast almost weekly to train the surface ships. It wasn’t unusual for one of the administrative staff to come down the hall, and say “The Captain is having a meeting” several times a week. I “disliked” those meeting, when we sat around the table, the senior representative from each department and he’d ask each one of us: “What’s going on?” We’d layout what our department was up to and he’d go to the next person. At the end, he might issue a few directions, but generally, that was all we did. I’d be happy to get back to the work at hand, but it wasn’t until after he transferred, and the new officer-in-charge came, that I captured the meaning of his many times a week interruption to our busy days, when we managed to get to the office. The next OIC wasn’t as communicative, but we still kept the organization going.

What Pete’s meetings did for us was to allow us to get on the phone, responding to a call from our “customers” (read ship commanding officers, department heads, and senior enlisted in most cases, or the staff personnel from the head of the surface forces for the Atlantic Fleet, whom we did our training and inspections for), and we could pretty well coherently answer their questions of scheduling and training initiatives in the works, because Pete had made us sit around the table and communicate that information to each other, when I assumed it was for him. It certainly was, but it had a broader audience.

That is a snap shot of what is bred into all levels of the chain of command, to one degree or another. I always despised the voice at the other end of the phone telling me “They aren’t here right now, but they’ll be back next week.” We didn’t try to assume the authority of the other departments, but since most of us were in and out, we certainly could represent them at a moderate level of detail, and then we could determine how important it may be that we tracked them down, if something was that important. I have come to gauge the organizational skills of a company by how well they can handle a call, when the specific person isn’t around to help you, viewed through the filter of the discussion above.

Part VII – “Total Care”

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII: “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

“Total Care:” The concept is when you have a military unit, leadership at all levels requires “total care” of those assigned under you. Most every aspect of their lives are now a responsibility of the leaders. Whether it’s a fire team leader, a platoon leader, battalion commander, or the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, everyone in your “down line” is your responsibility.

I suspect the top level of this concept isn’t lost on most employers, but for those without any military experience, much of the subtlety can be missed. As a result of the need to have this person ready to work 24/7, the “system” has a complete care system that completely outclasses any human resources department you might imagine in the civilian sector. The difference is there are few dedicated “human resource” professionals in the loop. Much of what is required is part and parcel of what a military leader is required to do.

What this means if any service member who has had any responsibility, in combat or not, will have a broader view of what a managerial position requires. We ensured routine wellness checks were done, that teeth were cleaned, that training was scheduled and held, that administrative records, documenting professional performance were properly entered in formal records, the right gear was packed, that families were prepared legally and logistically, for time to be spent apart, that single members personal belongings were stowed safely away, that financial arrangements were completed to ensure money went to the right banks, that life insurance forms reflected the proper beneficiaries, etc, etc, etc.

On a daily basis, this may not have much effect, but you can bet these people, in management, will be more in tune with HR programs, which makes for a better cared for work force, and therefore happier employees.