[monocasa]

There's also the opposite pressure. As a CO, you can demote people, but they're still under your command. To be effective you can't just rely on shedding dead weight like in the civilian sector. You're stuck with the subordinates you get more or less, so to hit your goals you practically have to actually invest in your subordinates, mainly by coaching and mentoring them.

And you can quiet quit in the military just as easily as on the civilian side, maybe easier. For the most part you won't get demoted for not giving a shit. You just won't get any more promotions, and you might eventually be not given another contract if you suck enough.

There's shit leadership in every org, but I've found former military leadership to have a little bit better batting average on internal team growth than purely civilian leadership.

[mter]

You have to treat your NCO/officers like humans, but there's no need to care about your joes. Tell joe to get things done and they can't stop until it's done or they get extra duty. If they refuse/complain? Article 15. And no one is going to risk requesting court martial instead of just getting the article 15 so commands have pretty wide latitude to do whatever they want.

> To be effective you can't just rely on shedding dead weight like in the civilian sector.

You can though. You shuffle the complete duds/ineffective people off to S&T or an ops shop where they can't get anyone killed. You micromanage the unmotivated and threaten with article 15s. The completely unfit? They're "encouraged" to be failure to adapt or to go AWOL.

[solarmist]

There is some degree of that, but the military is all volunteer and retention matters. There are still consequences to being a jerk. They're just slower to appear.

It sounds like you might be familiar with how it was in the 70s-90s as the military was trying to figure out the transition between conscription and voluntarily service.

Where the brass all came up under the old style, but all the new blood was 100% voluntary. It wasn't fun growing pains. I served in the early 2000s and there was still some remnants if this, but mostly it wasn't like that.

[le-mark]

> Tell joe to get things done and they can't stop until it's done or they get extra duty. If they refuse/complain? Article 15.

You can do that and have a lot of AWOLs and desertions; which does reflect poorly, eventually. It is common in high op tempo units to have a lot discipline issues though, because leaders have to push hard and months with no down time tears people down; mentally physically and emotionally.

[this_steve_j]

Can someone please explain Article 15 in terms of an analogous civilian workplace infraction and a typical military non-judicial punishment?

For example, if Joe shows up with a hangover 2 hours late for work at as a machine operator and cops an attitude with his manager, then he might get a…

[LanceH]

Don't think of it as anything that guy is saying, because he's full of shit. Let's start with his example of the officers telling the non-rates (e=3 and below) what to do. That's already generally unrealistic. Officcer's tell nco's who manage the lower ranks.

Article 15's are also called NJP (non-judicial punishment). You stand before the commanding officer in lieu of going to trial (court martial in the military).

One outcome of bullshit article 15's like mentioned above is someone calling the CO's bluff and going to trial. This would make the officer look like a fool and could end his career right there.

The result of an NJP could be loss of rank, confinement to quarters or loss of half pay for up to 3 months. Probably the most common would be DUI's.

[jwhitlark]

It doesn't really fit into that setup. When given an article 15, you can demand a trial by court-martial, so it doesn't really have a parallel in the civilian job market. It's usually kinda like house-arrest. So maybe think of it as some combination of a demotion, a fine, and a couple weeks in jail.

[Spooky23]

In my experience senior NCOs are worth their weight in gold. Officers above a captain will vary. The bad ones are toxic.

[thret]

My experience is that the majority of rank in IT is middle management and next to useless. The good ones leave for higher paid Defence contracting jobs as soon as they are promoted off the tools and the bad ones stay.

[lazide]

The military gets to demand 24/7 days or article 15.

That means they can order someone to do what they want, regardless. Great/important/necessary if it's life and death and everyone needs it done.

But there is a reason why suicides are so high and post-discharge mental health is always a nightmare. It's a system built on consuming the people in it.

That's called slavery or abuse in civilian life, and it doesn't scale. It does have it's place though.

[psunavy03]

This is not only wrong, it's offensively wrong. I get that there are poor examples of leadership to be seen in the military. But guess what? There's crap leadership in the civilian sector, too, and just because they can't NJP you does not make some workplaces any less toxic.

But to compare standard military culture to slavery or abuse is frankly appalling, especially the former.

[lazide]

You’re welcome to be as appalled as you want. I’ve seen enough to be appalled myself.

At least it’s now a volunteer military, and we don’t send conscripts into the jungle like we used to. Still paid mostly in patriotism for broken bodies and minds though.

The smart deal is warrant officer or contractor if you can swing it. SOC if you’re one of the high speed, low drag types. At least you get more cool stories that way.

[psunavy03]

> Still paid mostly in patriotism for broken bodies and minds though.

I find myself repeating myself in this thread . . . I'm sorry if that's your experience. But your own experience is not universalizable across DoD.

[lazide]

Of course not. I hear the chair force and navy are pretty cush!

Better get it in writing and read the fine print though, not that anyone ever does the first time.

[morkalork]

How would you compare the whole chain of command aspect? I worked with an ex-military guy in a small company (just under 100 headcount size) and his ideas about how a rigid hierarchy was supposed to work often clashed with the horizontal/start-up style of management everyone else had.

[psunavy03]

This is highly dependent on the person's rank and job description. "Ex-military" is like saying "ex-software guy" without specifying if you worked at a FAANG, fintech, medical, a F500's inhouse software shop, a start-up, etc. Way, way too much variation to draw any real conclusions. You have a sample size of one, and that's not enough to draw conclusions, only stereotype.

As a jet aviator, the idea of excessive hierarchy was basically anathema to my community. As a junior officer, we'd mock the surface fleet about it, talk about how they had 30-knot minds as opposed to 300-knot minds, and how they let pomp and ceremony get in the way of The Main Thing. We did have formal roles to fill as officers in our squadron on the ground. But in the air and in mission planning, one thing mattered and one thing only . . . credibility. And ultimately, while flight leads, element leads, and strike leads were a thing, the person who was expected to drive the team in the air was the person with the most awareness of what was going on. Tape debriefs would last as long as the flight did, and rank was no excuse to hide behind if you screwed up.

[csa]

> How would you compare the whole chain of command thing?

Not op, but…

It depends on how “ex” this vet was and what his MOS was. Specifically:

1. A lot of modern military leadership (esp. in the battlefield) is about giving the folks on the frontlines (figuratively and literally) the information and autonomy they need to make the best decisions for the mission. Some older vets may not have experienced this shift.

2. Some MOSes lend themselves to a strict hierarchy and SOPs, often because it’s just prudent for the job at hand. Others are not as highly structured.

[galangalalgol]

I've seen that too. Especially in situations where a team has specialized skills, and are not easily replaceable. If you treat them as subordinates instead of peers who need direction on the big picture (and reminders that profit has to be balanced with cool work ideas), then you will sink the ship. But what I usually see happen is someone else in management sees what is going on and gives them a silent demotion with pay. They get sidelined before they cause too much damage amd everyone just ignores them until they mess up bad enough to let go without worrying about a lawsuit.