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I find it an odd idea that the military (at least the US military) is the paradigm of efficiency or organization.

It's true they do have ways to get people do do what is directed but they aren't very efficient and organization at the micro level might be good but not at the macro.

There is a reason the military is so absurdly costly and apparently has trouble decisively ending conflicts. Because all the parts are in place doesn't necessarily mean organization at a higher level.

I also offer as evidence the growth of the use of contractors. Because we apparently can't put three guys in a rowboat for less than a million bucks. That's not organization, even if all uniforms are pressed to specification.

The successes the military does enjoy are more a matter of literal brute force and a big budget rather than organized long term planning IMOP.

>I find it an odd idea that the military (at least the US military) is the paradigm of efficiency or organization.

People in the military usually talk about it being a clusterfuck on the macro level. I think most of the people with this mental model of the military are just office middle managers.

I read that essay and enjoyed it very much. I think it was a message I needed to hear and I plan to read it again.

It also made me think of effective management. Imagine that while Rowan was in the jungle looking for Garcia one of his many bosses stopped by and told him to carry a message to Rivera.

Does he do as he's told without complaint? That means dropping his other task. Does he ask his boss which is more important (a question that is often met with "both are important"). Or more directly, which should he do first ("work on them in parallel").

And all this time, while priorities are being reassessed, Garcia is moving through the hills and no messages are being delivered at all.

The man who just "carried the message to Garcia" actually had autonomy and trust. When the President heard of the delivery, he didn't ask if Rowan followed the previously established ruleset for message delivery.

Petulant, undetermined people do exist in subordinate roles. However, oftentimes managers put up barriers but then weep and moan into their hands - why oh why can't my job be to sit and ask for things to be completed?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/00/86/b4/0086b4581...

No man, who has endeavored to carry out a coursework where many hands were needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average girl - the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it.

Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant.

You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your school library, teammates are within your call. Summon any one and make this request: “Please get books on Mercury".

Will the teammate quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task?

On your life, she will not.

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the “down-trodden denizen of the sweat shop” and with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with “help” that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned.

In your pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for Calvin, striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold the line in dowdy indifference, slipshod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude which, but for their enterprise, would be getting an F.

There's a difference between "getting people to do what they say they will do" and getting people to do whatever is asked of them. Part of the culture described in the article was honest capacity planning. The group didn't do whatever was asked; they honestly negotiated the workload. I don't think you can have a healthy no excuses culture without honest capacity planning.

>You can wrap excuses, or culture, or other corporate vocabulary around the matter

An excuse (ex + causa) is literally an external cause, ie. beyond the responsibility of what has been asked of them.

>Managing people is difficult

>They [military] are damned good at it

Regarding uncountable dead soldiers, who (hopefully) weren't supposed to die, the track record looks kinda skewed.

> You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within your call. Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Corregio.” Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task? On your life, he will not.

I had a boss like that, he was an asshole.

The idea that the ideal worker (especially in the information industry) is one that will do what you ask without asking questions or requiring explanation is extremely narcissistic. You don't somehow become a better person than everyone else just because you managed to start a business.

The author of the article also makes a critical mistake in the just-so example you cite, writing

  >And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered
  >the questions, and explained how to find the information,
  >and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of
  >the other clerks to help him find Garcia - and then come
  >                                  ^^^^^^
  >back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose
  >my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.

The historical figure the clerks were told to look for with imprecise identifiers and no business context is "Corregio", not "Garcia".

The author supplanted the subject of research with the mythical "Garcia" but even that metaphorical substitution is problematic because if Corregio:Garcia::research:letter then really all the clerks need do is return to the requester and say "I found Corregio".

It rhetorically opens the question of whether Rowan found Garcia or merely found "a" Garcia.

EDIT: subject verb agreement in first sentence. Add qualifying phrase in second sentence.

I think this ignores the problem that in many cases you don't have a good estimate for a date. If the task is one I know well I can estimate well. But if the question is when some new functionality will be deployed, it's just a best guess.

And for many tasks you simply don't know if it is going to work until the day of. Especially when you are trying to schedule aggressively.

All schedules are guesses. Just tell me when you first figure out yours is wrong, not when it's too late to help.

Often times we don't know the schedule is wrong until its too late to help. For a two year project that's probably not the case. But getting you data in two days may mean I realize the data won't be done the day of.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why is that essay "wonderful"? The way I read it, it's a manager who fails, and blames it on the incompetence of his inferiors. It's wishful thinking. A manager's fantasy. It puts the entire blame on the employee. Its bemoaning of lack of accountability is exactly that, lack of accountability.

I realize this entire thread is filled with confirmation bias. What I see is that this essay has its own Wikipedia entry, made it into popular culture, and survived for 117 year, which is quite remarkable. So I would be very interested in reading what makes this essay great, because I fail to understand it.

> Managing people is difficult and if there's an organization who has had more experience organizing people to execute objectives than most anyone else, it's the military. They are damned good at it and there exists a lot of manuals and writings to this end.

I was enlisted. The military is a mismanaged, incompetent bureaucracy. You will never see a privately owned business as terrible at everything as the military because private businesses can't manage through fear the way the military can. The military is the last bastion of contractual servitude for a reason. Bad leaders would have literally no one left working for them if we were given a choice.