Why our generals were more successful in WWII than in Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq/Afghanistan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE
Briefly, minimize the application process and aggressively review work. Any mistake or failure and you're fired, two weeks to prove competence or you're fired, six weeks until a significant accomplishment or you're fired. And no stigma against being fired, just keep trying until you find a fit.
Private industry could do this if they want, but it would require cutting executive pay in half, hiring twice as many executives, and creating intentionally redundant positions that serve little purpose other than preparing the next cohort for leadership. This works for the military due to a unique combination of the organization itself not having a profit motive and the personnel valuing non-monetary accomplishment more than personal wealth. And, of course, the military is a monopoly. This also works because there isn't a different military that can offer your generals triple the salary and poach them away. If they want to be generals at all, they have no choice but to buy into the unique culture of the only military they can serve in. Theoretically, a foreign military could try to buy them away, but countries mostly seem to not allow foreigners to command their military units for security reasons and the possibility of being executed for treason and/or desertion is a pretty strong incentive not to leave even if you got an offer.
An equivalent private sector practice would be not hiring leaders at all and only appointing them via internal promotion, but to get into the organization at all, you need to apply to a training academy first, then spend several years in that academy learning the organizational doctrine and culture and being evaluated and stack ranked before you're ever given a real job. Typically, the bottom 40% of so of cadets don't even get in at all and have to become reservists.
The problem is that, in most countries, employment law will make it pretty difficult to do this. Also, with deliberate high turnover like that, you'll find it difficult to keep trade secrets and there will be a huge drain on resources for onboarding those people who are quickly come and gone.
(This is for software engineering jobs, at least. In other industries it might work differently.)
In a country like Germany, if you fire an employee and they walk away with a hurt ego and start talking to a lawyer, you will end up hurting in some way or another, so the game is to manage egos and make sure that, when a company parts ways with an employee, the employee feels that it was mutual.
Actually, I think it would be a step in the right direction for both bosses and employees, if bosses could just say: Hey, I'm firing you because I just no longer want you here. You didn't do anything wrong. I just have other people who do the job better.
The perverse incentive is that it's probably better for companies to single out individuals they want to get rid of and treat them badly until they leave of their own account, rather than do that.
Regulations are written in blood. They are always Chesterton's fence. That doesn't mean it's still a good idea, or even that it ever was. But there's a reason it was put there, and it's wise to at least know why before removing it.
Today we have at least three "layers" of social security in most European countries:
The first layer is that government makes sure everyone has employment and makes it difficult for employers to get rid of employees, even those ones that cost the company more than they're worth. Family law extends the coverage to everyone else, e.g. for non-bread-winning spouses (even ex-spouses), it's the bread-winner that's on the hook (so, transitively, the bread-winner's employer) and for children the parents (again: ultimately the parents' employers).
The second layer is mandatory social insurance.
The third layer is usually some kind of outright government handout that kicks in for people who, for some reason, fall through both the first AND the second layer of social security. (e.g. [1] in Austria)
My guess would be that each layer was brought in at a time when the layers below were not yet in place, though, maybe, someone can provide the necessary facts to the contrary here.
I just wish they'd do away with all that crap, and instead just implement universal basic income, paid for by the tax payer.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedarfsorientierte_Mindestsich...
If you don't like your boss you can pack your things and go elsewhere. Your boss doesn't have that luxury.
This requires a really comprehensive social security net to not be abusive.
No one would work awful jobs for terrible pay because why? No employers would keep ineffective employees onboard because why? Unions might become obsolete because bad employers can't exist (people just quit). Anyone would be at liberty to try and start a new business because they never have to risk their passional safety.
Right now many employment situations are like an abusive relationship, staff (and bosses) are getting hurt, but they are afraid to break up. People with strong safety nets and personal wealth can leave terrible relationships much more easily than people who depend on a partner for everything or live in a society where breakups are taboo or illegal.
UBI might let you live in some small town in the middle of nowhere where the rent is low but it's unlikely to let you live in a high demand area. You could say "rent control" but that's not a solution. All that does is start a lottery of who gets it live in the city and who doesn't.
Further, there's a ton of jobs that need to be done but arguably no one wants. jobs like farming and shipping, stocking grocery stores, construction. Ok, so UBI lets everyone quit and now those jobs have to pay more to get anyone to take them. But then all the costs go up and UBI is no longer enough to make it. Raise the UBI and you get a vicious circle.
I don't know all the reasons prices are out of control in the bay area but for example, I ordered 3 simple Thai dishes the other night. $135! In Thailand that would have been $6. 3 burritos in the poor part of town, $60. 4 plates of Chinese dumplings, $80. My guess is this is in part, high rents, and paying higher wages. Sounds great, but now no low-income people can afford to eat out. UBI would take that even further because (see previous paragraph)
Someone will now chime in how it's bad to make people work in jobs they don't want. I don't disagree. My point isn't that people should work shitty jobs. My point is UBI won't fix the problem.
I don’t have much say in UBI, but your mention that rent-control would simply “start a lottery of who gets to live in the city” sounds like a good thing. If you don’t already have established family in a high-demand city (in which case you should be grandfathered in), isn’t a lottery the fairest way to get in?
Seems like an awful idea. Especially if you are new to something failures happen and are a good way to learn. This just rewards the lucky and those who minimize their own work.
You relieve someone from a position for not winning (and not just not failing). The theory proposed by the video is that relieve culture INCREASES (even if counterintuitively so) the willingness to take risks.
If there is no reward for winning then people will minimize risks. If you make winning necessary for keeping the position, they will be more likely to take risks. (In military context, officers these days, according to the video, care more about minimizing losses and not messing up than actually winning the wars.)
Translating it into civilians contexts might be a bit difficult but one thing that I believe can work well is allowing people to move to different positions to find one that they can be most effective in inside the company.
Like sometimes people get promoted to managers and then it turns out they are actually ill fitted for that position. Firing them might be a waste but just keeping them around will be to the detriment of the people they need to manage. So the solution is that they need to removed. Maybe even take a lower position until a better position can be found.
I think this is main take away: Just like you should not keep around badly performing general as that will cost literally lives you should also not keep around bad managers in a company to the detriment of the people they manage. It is better to pull the plug early, for both sides.
It doesn't make sense to apply the concept to rank and file soldiers or like junior software engineering roles.
The higher someone is on a the hierarchy tree, the more people they can influence and the more important it is to remove them when they are not a good fit.
It is very unfortunate that people think the video war arguing for hiring and firing normal employees just because they don't perform perfectly in the first few weeks. That would be absolutely psychopathic behavior. Your job as a junior is to learn and make mistakes.
I take a risk to accept your job offer. I turn down other offers. Maybe I quit my current job to work with you.
if EVERYONE in the economy played by your rules, it might work. Might. As long as labor is in strong demand.
At peacetime, people may not like to put up with the strain which such arrangement puts on them. It does improve efficiency, but had a cost, and works better at times of very high demand.
But on the long term? Senior-level employee makes an error? Bam - fired! With all the institutional knowledge gathered over the years, experience, etc. If it was a major screw-up - you'll be firing an employee who will not do that mistake again, but you will risk it with a new hire.
- Eric Hoffer
The allies were better in WW2 than the others, because they had a feasible grabd strategy and outperformed the Axis on operations. That, and the fact the Allies committed their full industrial might for years, while having public support for doing so.
Different subject, but I was just thinking what ww2 would have looked like if we had the slightly evolved social order, protections, liberties we have today. We still have racism and sexism and ... but it's different now (but still there). Most large organizations like the military still have an old boys club but they also did a lot of work to improve things. We have so far to go as a society. What if we didn't round up all the Japanese people and destroy or steal their possessions. How would the groups have dealt with the war? I think it would be like Russians living in Europe today, plenty are influenced by propaganda news orgs to think that Ukraine is somehow the bad guy, even though they are living in free, safe, and well off societies out of Russia.
This honestly admits that it’s both competence AND luck instead of pure competence.