Militaries are interesting. If I didn’t find so many other things interesting as well, I’d seriously consider a military career. That’s because militaries deal with lives in a direct and real way, so incredibly effective decision-making is a prerequisite. There is no room for error. There are a lot of interesting and useful lessons we can learn from militaries about management, whether we’re talking about our personal lives, finances, businesses or what-have-you.

Let’s consider ranks, accomplishments, incentives and signal mechanisms. A rank represents a formal position in a hierarchy- the pecking order. This is an emergent phenomenon throughout our societies- kings, dictators, CEOs, bosses, managers. Animals have distinctive social leaders too- it’s interesting to read about how these things are communicated- sometimes through actions, sometimes through visual manifestations, sometimes even through subtle things like pheromones and smells! Sometimes hierarchy is formalized- but in the absence of that, there’s always still an informal hierarchy.

Gen. David Petraeus- a heck of a badass.

I’m interested in contemplating the value of a formal system of ranks, whether it’s useful, effective, necessary at all. In a conventional military setting, the necessity of ranks is clear. Large quantities of manpower need to be co-ordinated effectively. Apparently, informal mechanisms are only sufficient for managing groups up to about 250 people- after that, things get too chaotic and “noisy” to function coherently. So ranks, or a chain-of-command, is useful in conventional warfare- in contexts where you win by leveraging the most amount of force in the quickest amount of time at the most decisive moment.

But here’s the kicker- conventional warfare is quickly becoming relatively obsolete and irrelevant in today’s modern world. Brute force and dominance in numbers is useful in some contexts, and is always good to have as a backup, but it is no longer the failsafe it used to be. It’s interesting to observe how militaries adapt to this.

Do ranks and accomplishments (I use the term in the video game sense- Achievement Unlocked!) make people work harder and more effectively? In an ideal world, everybody realizes their full potential with little to no regard for external motivations. But we are social creatures with complex motivations, we cannot really separate the intrinsic and extrinsic very much- and externalities matter.

Video games provide a great perspective. The introduction of accomplishments and ranks has made games more compelling- at least to a specific subset of gamers, who appear to be the vast majority. Many gamers spend vast amounts of effort (and money!) in pursuit of titles and accomplishments. (Not all, though. It’s important to remember that many different gamers play different games in different ways for different reasons.) It can become a bit of an unhealthy obsession.

For some, the validation of their efforts is part of the fun. For others, the fun is secondary- they willingly put themselves through repetitive and boring elements (which they acknowledge that they don’t enjoy) in pursuit of accomplishments. A step backward makes it clear that this is relevant to much of the rest of our lives too- working jobs we hate to buy things we don’t need to impress people who don’t really care about us.

The impact of these incentives, then, are questionable if we’re looking to “maximise” the well-being of the individual. What this does is (in a simplified sense, in a very limited context) “maximise” the well-being of the economy, at the expense of the individual. (I strongly believe that this doesn’t have to be the case- that there can and should be a win-win situation, which does exist in some areas, but ought to be a lot more prevalent.)

Your well-being is ultimately your business and your business alone (okay no, actually I think it’s everybody’s business- but let’s leave that out for now)- so if you realize that your obsession is unhealthy, then you should do something about it.

But clearly, incentives are a good way of getting things done, at least within a certain context. What books like Freakonomics exposed was that incentives work, just not always in the way that we presume they must- in fact, people will almost always find an ingenious way to exploit incentives in a way that allows them to get the reward without quite delivering what the incentives were trying to achieve. That can’t be helped very much. Some people may want to focus on correcting that, and it’s a noble cause that I support.

In the context of the military- if a group of soldiers become obsessed with wanting to wear a “Paramedic” badge, it’s possible that it might be unhealthy for them- maybe they’ll lose sleep and their social lives might suffer. Some of them may go through the paramedic course without absorbing anything that they learn. All of that taken into account, I think it’s still fair to say that the introduction of the paramedic badge benefits the military. It leads to more soldiers taking the paramedic course, which subsequently leads to more paramedic-trained soldiers. That’s good for the military to have, even if it’s at the expense of the soldiers. (I gave the worst case scenario. I believe that paramedic courses are win-win situations- even if you went into such a course with the intention of getting the badge and nothing else, you learn valuable life skills that you can apply elsewhere. You might save a life. Everybody wins.)

This is VOSK, a heck of a badass.

So it seems to make sense that things that are good for everyone- that have positive externalities- should be advertised publicly. At least, the option should be made available. I suppose that’s why badges make sense in a military context- competitiveness here is healthy, because the more specialized skills everybody has, the better it is for the military at large. World of Warcraft achievements might be bad for a WoW player’s social life (outside of WoW, at least!), but it is great for World of Warcraft. It creates a more interesting and complex environment with more interesting characters. I suppose that’s part of the allure of symbols- why the Pope still wears so much bling-bling. It’s good for the Church, even if if Jesus wouldn’t have approved- and a bigger Church is better, right? (Let’s not go there.)

The Pope- a heck of a badass.

A grand idealistic view would be to call for the abolishment of such symbols altogether, in the hope of transforming human nature. I approve of the intent- human nature can and should be transformed for the better, but we can’t do it by trying to do away with symbols. In the absence of formal symbols, informal ones will be conjured up.

We’d have to address the root of the problem, which lies in people’s mindsets and and belief systems. People ought to learn to see that we are not superior or inferior human beings to those above or below us in any subjective pecking order. Authorities can and should be questioned. Transforming mindsets in this manner is part of my long term goal- it’s not a new one, but it’s a worthy cause to pick up!

Pragmatically speaking though, ranks, accomplishments and symbols matter to people, and we shouldn’t pretend that they don’t. A person who claims to eschew such signalling mechanisms is unwittingly sending out a clear signal himself. Choosing (or claiming to choose!) not to play the game is just another strategy that people use, whether they realise it or not. You might not think so, but that’s how others will perceive it, and we live in a world where perception is reality.

So the important question I want to ask is- how can we modify or influence existing mechanisms such that they make the world a better, more equitable place? Better is subjective, so I have to share my views- I want to see more engagement and conversation, more acts of compassion, less violence, more progress in science, technology and human thought, less suffering in terms of poverty, illiteracy, disease, starvation, xenophobia, racism and general misery. That’s a better world to me, at least marginally. It’s something worth living and dying for.

I suppose I’ll have to answer that last question in a separate post all together, because this was where I digressed to my next post on education.