The stupidity HA

[BlackKnight]

[IraqVet2003]

This is a fairly decent article I edited to fit here

That’s really no great mystery about bureaucracies. Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t what bureaucracies are about. Bureaucracies are about keeping the routine going. Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. The head of Bureaucracies are commonplace, ordinary, usual and common. They have no genius for organizing or initiative or even order, no particular learning or intelligence, no distinguishing characteristics at all. Just the ability to keep the routine going. What gets you up in a bureaucracy is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. This is the perfect description of the kind of person who tends to prosper in the bureaucratic environment. Obviously becoming self employed or an entrepreneur is the normal reaction to this situation but most people can't really think so they descend into rather silly and vindictive diatribes.

I tell you this to forewarn you, because I promise you that you will meet these people and you will find yourself in environments where what is rewarded above all is conformity. I tell you so you can decide to be a different kind of leader. And I tell you for one other reason. As I thought about these things and put all these pieces together—the kind of students I had, the kind of leadership they were being trained for, the kind of leaders I saw in my own institution—I realized that this is a national problem. We have a crisis of leadership in this country, in every institution. Not just in government. Look at what happened to American corporations in recent decades, as all the old dinosaurs like General Motors or TWA or U.S. Steel fell apart. Look at what happened to Wall Street in just the last couple of years.

Finally—and I know I’m on sensitive ground here—look at what happened during the first four years of the Iraq War. We were stuck. It wasn’t the fault of the enlisted ranks or the noncoms or the junior officers. It was the fault of the senior leadership, whether military or civilian or both. We weren’t just not winning, we weren’t even changing direction. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of exper­tise. What we don’t have are leaders

Anyone who’s been paying attention for the last few years understands that the changing nature of warfare means that officers, including junior officers, are required more than ever to be able to think independently, creatively, flexibly. To deploy a whole range of skills in a fluid and complex situation. Lieutenant colonels who are essentially functioning as provincial governors in Iraq, or captains who find themselves in charge of a remote town somewhere in Afghanistan. People who know how to do more than follow orders and execute routines.

We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who are brain-dead. Being a good leader now means being a good follower. What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision.

BlackKnight, I think this is one of the best articles I have ever read!!! Indeed America certainly has a crisis in leadership or people who have a vision and can think outside the box. Also, BlackKnight as someone who has served in Iraq (Camp Anaconda-Balad, Iraq back in 2003) and has been in two branches of the military (Air Force- 1992-96/Army-2001-05), this article is spot on about the real leadership (or the lack thereof). But I would like to add the many of the senior officers went to combat zones like Iraq and/or Afghanistan as a "notch on their belt" for career advancement and rotate out to a new assignment. Besides, as I have said in a different H.A. post, THE U.S. MILITARY IS NO PLACE FOR FREETHINKERS AND REPRESENTS THE ULTIMATE IN COMFORMITY and this article further confirms that reality.

[Ghost]

.

[BlackKnight]

This is a fairly decent article I edited to fit here

That’s really no great mystery about bureaucracies. Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t what bureaucracies are about. Bureaucracies are about keeping the routine going. Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. The head of Bureaucracies are commonplace, ordinary, usual and common. They have no genius for organizing or initiative or even order, no particular learning or intelligence, no distinguishing characteristics at all. Just the ability to keep the routine going. What gets you up in a bureaucracy is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. This is the perfect description of the kind of person who tends to prosper in the bureaucratic environment. Obviously becoming self employed or an entrepreneur is the normal reaction to this situation but most people can't really think so they descend into rather silly and vindictive diatribes.

I tell you this to forewarn you, because I promise you that you will meet these people and you will find yourself in environments where what is rewarded above all is conformity. I tell you so you can decide to be a different kind of leader. And I tell you for one other reason. As I thought about these things and put all these pieces together—the kind of students I had, the kind of leadership they were being trained for, the kind of leaders I saw in my own institution—I realized that this is a national problem. We have a crisis of leadership in this country, in every institution. Not just in government. Look at what happened to American corporations in recent decades, as all the old dinosaurs like General Motors or TWA or U.S. Steel fell apart. Look at what happened to Wall Street in just the last couple of years.

Finally—and I know I’m on sensitive ground here—look at what happened during the first four years of the Iraq War. We were stuck. It wasn’t the fault of the enlisted ranks or the noncoms or the junior officers. It was the fault of the senior leadership, whether military or civilian or both. We weren’t just not winning, we weren’t even changing direction. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of exper­tise. What we don’t have are leaders

Anyone who’s been paying attention for the last few years understands that the changing nature of warfare means that officers, including junior officers, are required more than ever to be able to think independently, creatively, flexibly. To deploy a whole range of skills in a fluid and complex situation. Lieutenant colonels who are essentially functioning as provincial governors in Iraq, or captains who find themselves in charge of a remote town somewhere in Afghanistan. People who know how to do more than follow orders and execute routines.

We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who are brain-dead. Being a good leader now means being a good follower. What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision.

BlackKnight, I think this is one of the best articles I have ever read!!! Indeed America certainly has a crisis in leadership or people who have a vision and can think outside the box. Also, BlackKnight as someone who has served in Iraq (Camp Anaconda-Balad, Iraq back in 2003) and has been in two branches of the military (Air Force- 1992-96/Army-2001-05), this article is spot on about the real leadership (or the lack thereof). But I would like to add the many of the senior officers went to combat zones like Iraq and/or Afghanistan as a "notch on their belt" for career advancement and rotate out to a new assignment. Besides, as I have said in a different H.A. post, THE U.S. MILITARY IS NO PLACE FOR FREETHINKERS AND REPRESENTS THE ULTIMATE IN COMFORMITY and this article further confirms that reality.

Bingo! Most problems in the world are a result of an ever-increasing system that is growing like a giant organism. But fear not, we are about to grow a brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_brain under my leadership.

[BlackKnight]

Of course there's no point complaining about it. Once a society embraces bullshit like "affirmative action," the rest is a foregone conclusion.

Affirmative action doesn't matter because the end results are the same for the system. Thus your conclusion is stupid. Go back school and come back when you can think