A couple of nights ago I found myself watching Admiral McRaven’s
powerful commencement speech to the University of Texas, Class of 2014. - I revisit this amazing speech on a regular
basis and if you haven’t watched it, I would commend it to you; a quick google
and visit to Youtube should find it -.
His memories of military training struck a chord with me and, whilst I
certainly haven’t done Navy Seal training, I attended a number of military
courses back in the day when a healthy attrition figure was not only expected
but encouraged. The prevailing logic was
that not everyone should pass by right and even though promotion courses were
indeed training courses, they
represented an opportunity to see if those attending had the ‘right stuff’ to advance
to the next rank and continue to serve in my fine Corps.
I have to admit that I liked this ethos at
the time; it gave me confidence in those around me (my band of brothers and
sisters) and a sense of achievement in having made the grade. Some years later, promotion courses were
given a more scientific review and the pass/fail criteria was changed in such a
way that ‘failing’ became a much less regular occurrence, Failure decisions and attendance criteria
were regularly challenged by those who knew their rights. This was during times of lean recruitment
when we couldn’t afford to discard people who could still make even a limited
contribution. It may be deemed judgemental
to say that this affected quality and that some ranks were swelled by more unfit
or less resilient individuals than might have been the case in the past. I hasten to add that the quality still shone
through and the very best students went on to enjoy more rapid promotion in
their later careers.
So, some years later as the British Army is rapidly shrinking down to about 80,000, we have seen successive tranches of redundancy. There has been a concerted effort to ensure that those selected for redundancy were chosen on ‘quality’ criteria but this didn’t stop some of the very best individuals it has been my pleasure to serve with being handed their papers, purely on the basis of years served and the bracket in which they fell. Had we maintained a leaner, tougher Army and been more selective in the past, might we arguably have saved some of these quality individuals? Is there a time and place to test your people for their reaction to adversity, how they react when cold, wet, hungry and tired; with less science and more judgement? I am undecided if this is a simple binary question - train in or select out? – but I have a nagging doubt that by trying to quantise all pass/fail decisions, particularly in a military environment, we are missing something. I recognise of course, the difficulty in defending decisions that rely upon gut instinct rather scientific assessment criteria and also, the inherent danger of creeping excellence amongst instructors, but my final question remains:
Is it possible to make a decision to fail or filter out an individual because they just don’t have the right stuff?
I have to admit that I liked this ethos at
the time; it gave me confidence in those around me (my band of brothers and
sisters) and a sense of achievement in having made the grade. Some years later, promotion courses were
given a more scientific review and the pass/fail criteria was changed in such a
way that ‘failing’ became a much less regular occurrence, Failure decisions and attendance criteria
were regularly challenged by those who knew their rights. This was during times of lean recruitment
when we couldn’t afford to discard people who could still make even a limited
contribution. It may be deemed judgemental
to say that this affected quality and that some ranks were swelled by more unfit
or less resilient individuals than might have been the case in the past. I hasten to add that the quality still shone
through and the very best students went on to enjoy more rapid promotion in
their later careers. So, some years later as the British Army is rapidly shrinking down to about 80,000, we have seen successive tranches of redundancy. There has been a concerted effort to ensure that those selected for redundancy were chosen on ‘quality’ criteria but this didn’t stop some of the very best individuals it has been my pleasure to serve with being handed their papers, purely on the basis of years served and the bracket in which they fell. Had we maintained a leaner, tougher Army and been more selective in the past, might we arguably have saved some of these quality individuals? Is there a time and place to test your people for their reaction to adversity, how they react when cold, wet, hungry and tired; with less science and more judgement? I am undecided if this is a simple binary question - train in or select out? – but I have a nagging doubt that by trying to quantise all pass/fail decisions, particularly in a military environment, we are missing something. I recognise of course, the difficulty in defending decisions that rely upon gut instinct rather scientific assessment criteria and also, the inherent danger of creeping excellence amongst instructors, but my final question remains:
Is it possible to make a decision to fail or filter out an individual because they just don’t have the right stuff?
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