No one wants to be in last place, but someone must. Being last has a stigma, and has caused many to get upset. Yet for thousands of years, these losers went on with their lives, and found areas where they could win. If they were bad at basketball, they may have focused on science. Some people with great potential in science may have become ditch diggers. Some people with no potential become politicians (I won't bother to link to the pitiful resumes online, you can find them yourself).
Back in the early 90s, I was attending an Infantry Basic Non-Commissioned Officers course. There were about 30 of us taking the course, and I knew many of the other soldiers attending. There were many days of classroom study and discussions, and some field work. This course was memorable for many reasons, one being that I contracted Lyme Disease from a tick that wasn't known to carry it at the time (I was diagnosed and treated early, and it has not returned).
One of the course requirements was to complete a night land navigation course. This module required each soldier to navigate at night through the woods to locate a placard attached to a tree, and at each one, refer to a cue sheet to determine a new direction and distance to the next placard. This was a timed event. I was surprised to hear that we'd be doing this in teams, and the instructors chose the teams.
On the night of the exercise, I was half of a two person team. Or was I 90% of a two person team? All other teams were 3-4 people. I looked at the person I was paired up with, and felt the fear of failure start seeping in. He was what we referred to as an "oxygen thief", or someone who was a waste of perfectly good food and air, at least in terms of their service in the military. (Although I later met TSA agents who were reservists, and I realized that I hadn't seen what a real loser looked like.) Throughout the course, he had many excuses as to why he couldn't run, walk, march, or do most anything else. His uniform looked like he just pulled it out of a duffel bag, and he kept misplacing his stuff. This couldn't be right, how did I get paired up with him?
After consulting with the instructors, they confirmed that the roster was correct, and I couldn't change teams. Of course anyone who knew me back then, knows I can be challenging in a discussion (okay, maybe that hasn't changed much). I had taken my share of unpopular positions in debating the instructors during class. I saw this team assignment as a payback for verbally dragging the instructors across the floor, and off the slippery slopes, and kicked myself for precipitating this.
When our time to start the land navigation arrived, my team mate and I headed off together. He had asked to lead to the first point, so I allowed him to do this. Each person knows how many paces on each type of terrain totals a kilometer, and most field soldiers wore beads on their vests to count the distance. As each kilometer was walked, one bead would slide down the rope. It is second nature to any good field soldier.
About halfway to the first point, SSG J. declared we had arrived, and began looking for the placard. I questioned him on the distance, and when he confirmed we walked the distance, I told him I thought it was farther. I had been counting my paces, and knew we hadn't arrived. He insisted, and wandered in the dark woods looking for the placard that didn't exist. I eventually convinced him to follow me, and we set off for the real location. After a short time, his poncho came untied, and then he started dropping stuff. He lost his flashlight, pulled a leg muscle, heard carnivorous wild animals, and asked if we should go back to the rendezvous point. He kept banging his legs on branches and cursing. The clock kept ticking.
A glance at my watch had me wondering if we should just admit defeat and head back. But that's not how I'm wired. There was a decision to be made, and I made it. I advised SSG J. to grab the back of my gear with one hand, and to not let go. He grabbed on, and I took off on the course. I dragged him through the course, in some places pulling him over downed trees by his straps. "We" completed the course within the cutoff time.
The soldiers who failed were given a retest. An instructor put a glow stick 100 meters into the woods, and the soldiers were sent into the woods to find it. They only had to say the color of the stick when they came out of the woods. The pinnacle of mediocrity had been achieved.
Everyone passed the course, and I was disgusted to see SSG J. on the promotion list ahead of people I knew to be much better leaders. Who suffers from this inequity? First the people who could have passed the course on their own, were now competing with a person who needed someone to pull them through. The soldiers this person eventually led were also victims of the equal outcomes the training tried to guarantee. If he couldn't do the basics himself, how could he lead others in accomplishing them? Luckily, this was before the war on terror, and hopefully he retired before his services were needed.
What this taught me, is that trying to guarantee an equal outcome is not a good approach to having a better organization (or society, for that matter). Each of us are born to a family, and some families have more than others. We each have different interests, abilities, and determination. How we apply ourselves to the challenges in life will determine the outcomes in our life. There is no law or policy that can change this, nor can we normalize the variables that we each experience. Illness, accidents, genetics, bad decisions, and sometimes the complete randomness of natural events will ensure that there is no equal outcome, even when we attempt to make all of the variables equal.
When we take away grading systems, we encourage striving for mediocrity. When we take away rewards, we encourage mediocrity. If we only have pass/fail, why put in the extra effort? If I were an "A" student, why should I put in more effort beyond what it takes to get a "C", if my "A" puts me on equal footing with those who attained a "C"?
If we can count on a handout to keep us from having to provide for the necessities in life, how can we expect people to apply efforts to better themselves, and in turn grow our society? If I have an idea that will change lives, and reward me financially, why should I bring it forward if the implementation of the idea will force me to hand over the majority of the reward to support others? This is how we encourage mediocrity, and lose innovation.
We are each individuals, and each of us have the right to pursue happiness. There is no right to find happiness. When we think that we are due happiness, we must remember that life isn't fair, nor is a bureaucratic government fair. Taking from one person to give to another is immoral. Individuals choosing to give to another is genuine.
If you like this post, please share it with your social media network using the buttons below.
_______________________
Back in the early 90s, I was attending an Infantry Basic Non-Commissioned Officers course. There were about 30 of us taking the course, and I knew many of the other soldiers attending. There were many days of classroom study and discussions, and some field work. This course was memorable for many reasons, one being that I contracted Lyme Disease from a tick that wasn't known to carry it at the time (I was diagnosed and treated early, and it has not returned).
One of the course requirements was to complete a night land navigation course. This module required each soldier to navigate at night through the woods to locate a placard attached to a tree, and at each one, refer to a cue sheet to determine a new direction and distance to the next placard. This was a timed event. I was surprised to hear that we'd be doing this in teams, and the instructors chose the teams.
On the night of the exercise, I was half of a two person team. Or was I 90% of a two person team? All other teams were 3-4 people. I looked at the person I was paired up with, and felt the fear of failure start seeping in. He was what we referred to as an "oxygen thief", or someone who was a waste of perfectly good food and air, at least in terms of their service in the military. (Although I later met TSA agents who were reservists, and I realized that I hadn't seen what a real loser looked like.) Throughout the course, he had many excuses as to why he couldn't run, walk, march, or do most anything else. His uniform looked like he just pulled it out of a duffel bag, and he kept misplacing his stuff. This couldn't be right, how did I get paired up with him?
After consulting with the instructors, they confirmed that the roster was correct, and I couldn't change teams. Of course anyone who knew me back then, knows I can be challenging in a discussion (okay, maybe that hasn't changed much). I had taken my share of unpopular positions in debating the instructors during class. I saw this team assignment as a payback for verbally dragging the instructors across the floor, and off the slippery slopes, and kicked myself for precipitating this.
When our time to start the land navigation arrived, my team mate and I headed off together. He had asked to lead to the first point, so I allowed him to do this. Each person knows how many paces on each type of terrain totals a kilometer, and most field soldiers wore beads on their vests to count the distance. As each kilometer was walked, one bead would slide down the rope. It is second nature to any good field soldier.
About halfway to the first point, SSG J. declared we had arrived, and began looking for the placard. I questioned him on the distance, and when he confirmed we walked the distance, I told him I thought it was farther. I had been counting my paces, and knew we hadn't arrived. He insisted, and wandered in the dark woods looking for the placard that didn't exist. I eventually convinced him to follow me, and we set off for the real location. After a short time, his poncho came untied, and then he started dropping stuff. He lost his flashlight, pulled a leg muscle, heard carnivorous wild animals, and asked if we should go back to the rendezvous point. He kept banging his legs on branches and cursing. The clock kept ticking.
A glance at my watch had me wondering if we should just admit defeat and head back. But that's not how I'm wired. There was a decision to be made, and I made it. I advised SSG J. to grab the back of my gear with one hand, and to not let go. He grabbed on, and I took off on the course. I dragged him through the course, in some places pulling him over downed trees by his straps. "We" completed the course within the cutoff time.
The soldiers who failed were given a retest. An instructor put a glow stick 100 meters into the woods, and the soldiers were sent into the woods to find it. They only had to say the color of the stick when they came out of the woods. The pinnacle of mediocrity had been achieved.
Everyone passed the course, and I was disgusted to see SSG J. on the promotion list ahead of people I knew to be much better leaders. Who suffers from this inequity? First the people who could have passed the course on their own, were now competing with a person who needed someone to pull them through. The soldiers this person eventually led were also victims of the equal outcomes the training tried to guarantee. If he couldn't do the basics himself, how could he lead others in accomplishing them? Luckily, this was before the war on terror, and hopefully he retired before his services were needed.
What this taught me, is that trying to guarantee an equal outcome is not a good approach to having a better organization (or society, for that matter). Each of us are born to a family, and some families have more than others. We each have different interests, abilities, and determination. How we apply ourselves to the challenges in life will determine the outcomes in our life. There is no law or policy that can change this, nor can we normalize the variables that we each experience. Illness, accidents, genetics, bad decisions, and sometimes the complete randomness of natural events will ensure that there is no equal outcome, even when we attempt to make all of the variables equal.
When we take away grading systems, we encourage striving for mediocrity. When we take away rewards, we encourage mediocrity. If we only have pass/fail, why put in the extra effort? If I were an "A" student, why should I put in more effort beyond what it takes to get a "C", if my "A" puts me on equal footing with those who attained a "C"?
If we can count on a handout to keep us from having to provide for the necessities in life, how can we expect people to apply efforts to better themselves, and in turn grow our society? If I have an idea that will change lives, and reward me financially, why should I bring it forward if the implementation of the idea will force me to hand over the majority of the reward to support others? This is how we encourage mediocrity, and lose innovation.
We are each individuals, and each of us have the right to pursue happiness. There is no right to find happiness. When we think that we are due happiness, we must remember that life isn't fair, nor is a bureaucratic government fair. Taking from one person to give to another is immoral. Individuals choosing to give to another is genuine.
If you like this post, please share it with your social media network using the buttons below.
_______________________
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.