Operations Research Management Science - ORacle

<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" link="cc0000" vlink="cc0000" text="#000000"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br>   <table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=480><tr valign=top> <td width=10><img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 hspace=4 border=0></td> <td width=470> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B><I><A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top">OR/MS Today</A> - December 2003</I></B></font><BR> <hr size="1"> <img src="cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <font face="times new roman, times"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>ORacle</B></FONT><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <FONT SIZE="+2"><B>The General's Parable</B></FONT><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>by Douglas A. Samuelson</B></FONT><br> <hr size="1"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br>    Late fall's chill was in the air, and the stiff breeze drove a steady, cold rain, but the OR/MS analyst and his host were warm and comfortable in front of the fireplace. The analyst had recently learned about the value of fear in the workplace  from a horse trainer, of all people  and realized after some thought that he needed to know more. In particular, how much is enough, and how much is too much? He had invited an older friend and colleague, a retired brigadier general, out to lunch to talk about it, and now he was enjoying the general's hospitality in return. <P>"You'd be surprised," the general was explaining, "how little intimidation you need. The classical idea in military training was that men had to be more frightened of disobeying orders than of risking death by carrying the orders out. Drill sergeants made sure of that. Time was, field commanders reinforced it with public whippings. Over time, though, the military learned how to get just about the same results with a milder approach." <P>"That's what I want to know more about," the analyst prompted. <P>"We learned," the general said, "that men could be motivated just as well by a strong identification with the group, and a fear of letting their buddies down. Fear of failure, especially failure that harms people you care about, works better than fear of punishment, because you're still trying to avoid letting down the group even if you think nobody will catch you in the act. <P>"More than that, though," the general continued, "we realized that a lot of the results we got from drill weren't from fear, but from making sure people knew what to do. Under stress, people tend to do what they've trained to do in similar situations. The last thing we want everybody to do is stop in their tracks and try to reason it out." <P>"Yeah," the analyst affirmed. "When I played basketball in high school, my coach used to tell us over and over, 'Don't think! Don't think at all! Just feel it and do what we practiced!' I didn't really understand, but it worked. It's the same thing, isn't it?" <P>"That's the idea," the general agreed. "And the same idea works on the higher level, too. If everyone knows what the objectives are and is committed to achieving them, units continue to function fairly effectively when they're cut off from command. In World War II, as long as their command, control and communication  c-cubed, we call it  remained intact, German and Russian units generally fought better than American units. When c-cubed broke down, though, American forces improvised well. German and Russian units often just stopped, sat still and waited for orders, which usually worked badly. In 'Nam, where our units often didn't know and understand the larger objective and how they fit into it, we were better trained, better equipped, more mobile, really good in a lot of individual actions, but overall much less effective than in World War II. We were reacting to the enemy too much, using basically defensive strategy, and not taking the action to them as we could have. <P>"Now, in the Gulf, especially this last time," the general went on, "our information and communication were so good that low-level commanders, even down to platoon level, could play 'what-if' on a computer screen, evaluate alternatives in a few minutes, and do very effective things just about every time. Troops are more willing to go along, because they see results and not many casualties. And another key is to know how to evaluate what worked and what didn't, so you don't have to argue about what to do next time. Effectiveness, cohesion and clarity get you the results." <P>"Wow! That's great," the analyst responded. "A lot of thought must have gone into this." <P>"Plus a lot of happy accidents, within a system where results were known and got assessed carefully," the general said. "Remember, we're selected and trained to be averse to risk and conspicuous mistakes, so we pay attention to how screwups happen and try to avoid them." <P>"Selected to be risk averse?" the analyst inquired. "What do you mean?" <P>"At every level, officers who do too many unorthodox things get weeded out," the general said. "When people get to the War College, they have to bring in outside instructors to teach them to think creatively, because we've done such a good job of selecting that trait out." <P>"Isn't that bad?" the analyst wondered. <P>"You tell me," the general chuckled. "Several years ago, one of the advocates for the land mines treaty wound up talking to a friend of mine, a three-star general in the Pentagon. The Army was opposing U. S. ratification of the treaty because there was some vague unease about giving up options we might decide later we wanted. The advocate got impatient and blurted out, 'Why are you all so conservative about making decisions?'" <P>"That must have been interesting," the analyst murmured. <P>"Oh, it was," the general laughed. "My friend, the three-star, just smiled and told the guy, 'Of all people, I'd think you peaceniks would not want a bold, decisive military. We don't do anything unless pretty much everyone agrees it's the right thing to do and absolutely necessary. And that's your best protection against the military trying to take over the country!' End of discussion." <CENTER><TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="1" BGCOLOR="#990000" width=440> <TR ALIGN="Center" VALIGN="Middle"> <TD><IMG SRC="art/shim.gif" VSPACE=1 BORDER=0 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="6" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" width=436> <TR ALIGN="Left" VALIGN="Top"> <TD> <CENTER><font color="#990000" size="2" face="verdana, arial, helvetica"><B>Author's Note:</B></font></CENTER><BR> <font size="1" face="verdana, arial, helvetica"> The general's opinions about Vietnam are the main conclusions of Colonel Harry Summers' highly acclaimed book, "On Strategy," which was the War College's study on the subject. I am aware that there is still considerable disagreement among knowledgeable people about this topic. </TD> </TR> </TABLE> <IMG SRC="art/shim.gif" VSPACE=1 BORDER=0 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1> </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </CENTER> <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><I><B>Doug Samuelson</B> is president of InfoLogix, Inc., a research and development and consulting firm in Annandale, Va., and an adjunct faculty member at The George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania.</i></font><BR>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=5 border=0><br>  <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <CENTER><script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></CENTER><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=1> <LI> <A HREF="tocfr.html" Target="_top"><I>Table of Contents</A><br> <LI> <A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top"><I>OR/MS Today</I> Home Page</A><br>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <b><i>OR/MS Today</i></b> copyright © 2003 by <A HREF="http://www.informs.org/" target="_new">the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences</a>. 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