Strong teamwork, cohesion, and a sense of satisfaction come from achieving great things together

Richard: Another good post.

Your comments on “team building” are spot on. I equate the misplaced faith in these events to that placed by some people in the “boot camp” approach for dealing with young offenders. The reason these things work in the military (and they don’t always work 100%) is because they occur inside a highly structured and focused culture that then reinforces the outcomes of these activities, or punishes their failures (usually…). Running around in a swamp for a day won’t fix a corporate team that has bad organization, a low ethical blood cell count, and dysfunctional management. But, it will feel very cool.

In my humble (and admittedly rather limited…) view, two things that are too often not done very well at all in the civilian world (be it corporate or government) are leadership and training (with professional development having a foot in both camps but also somewhat neglected or misapplied).

Too often leadership (as we would grasp it in the military) is either largely absent or reduced to a bumper sticker/wall poster level of thought and application. Training (even in some aspects of emergency services) is often regarded as a cost rather than as an investment, and even when it is pursued it can be rudimentary, “check box” and poorly thought out.

In the military we make a fetish of training (because we can) but there is a happy median somewhere, which in my opinion is often not found in many civilian organizations.

2 Responses

Dave Banks says:

November 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm

Richard: Another good post.

Your comments on “team building” are spot on. I equate the misplaced faith in these events to that placed by some people in the “boot camp” approach for dealing with young offenders. The reason these things work in the military (and they don’t always work 100%) is because they occur inside a highly structured and focused culture that then reinforces the outcomes of these activities, or punishes their failures (usually…). Running around in a swamp for a day won’t fix a corporate team that has bad organization, a low ethical blood cell count, and dysfunctional management. But, it will feel very cool.

In my humble (and admittedly rather limited…) view, two things that are too often not done very well at all in the civilian world (be it corporate or government) are leadership and training (with professional development having a foot in both camps but also somewhat neglected or misapplied).

Too often leadership (as we would grasp it in the military) is either largely absent or reduced to a bumper sticker/wall poster level of thought and application. Training (even in some aspects of emergency services) is often regarded as a cost rather than as an investment, and even when it is pursued it can be rudimentary, “check box” and poorly thought out.

In the military we make a fetish of training (because we can) but there is a happy median somewhere, which in my opinion is often not found in many civilian organizations.

Everyday Power says:

November 20, 2013 at 4:20 pm

Wow! Great blog post! Keep them coming!

Richard Martin

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