by Michael Shaw
This past week, the Thought Distillery met and discussed the idea of leaderships impact in regard to time and space. This topic does not fall featly into categories of black or white, heck sometime grey is too stark a color. Thoughts and ideas spanned from leader development to monthly USR reporting to annual evaluations to training units versus tactical units.
The primary theme for which the group tackled centered around immediate impacts in day to day activities which are measurable and used for performance statistics versus the prolonged development of individuals or the organization in the next 12, 24, or 36 months. Because we as a military value present production the value of organizational success in the near future continues to be of little relevance, at least that is the way it appears.
We all toiled with questions such as:
Does performance trump potential or potential trump performance? Have you ever received an evaluation that did not represent your actual performance?
How do evaluation profiles fit into performance vs potential?
Just like sports, commanders change out as often as coaches. If you have a successful team is that because of the work you did building that team or is that the path they were already on.
What should the formation look like under the next commander/IP/PSG/manager? Should you be held accountable or is it statistically relevant to track their success, retention, etc?
Do the actions of today matter more or less than the impacts you have on 6 months from now?
Was Lincoln effective just because he brought in the right people or was the path he charted what enabled those diverse thinkers and political opponents to succeed?
During the discussion it was suggested that all training schools are graded and ranked across the branch of service. We rank colleges, it might be worth wile to know which Captains Career Course or Warrant Officer Advanced Course, etc were the best in the Army. Pride, effort, dedication, all things that individuals look for in the organizations they work and presently there is very little that categorizes training schools and how they stack up. There is something to be said for knowing if you are #1 or #75.
If this subject peeks your interest, here are a couple of books and articles that travel further down these rabbit holes.
Books:
Team of Rivals by Dorris Goodwin
Dereliction of Duty by H.R. McMaster
Articles: