A military is either at war, training for war, or a lousy military. I don't know of any fourth option.

How exactly did you do that? If you mean you just put in your time and didn't re-enlist, you have to know that's not the same thing as walking off the job.

My point is that people like this are a minority in the military, and are generally despised by those who have to put up with them, whereas they absolutely dominate corporate culture.

Okay, I'll try to explain it again. My three main points:

1. Business is not war, because under normal circumstances, business does not involve killing people. Microsoft is not going to bomb Google's headquarters. Target submarines are not going to stalk ships carrying goods for Wal-Mart. Ford is not going to dispatch a battalion to move into a GM plant, kill or take prisoner all the GM employees found there, and hold the plant against attempts to take it back.

2. Corporations are not armies. The most obvious difference is that corporate employees can always walk away. Plenty of people stay with jobs they dislike for financial reasons, of course, but as a rule, in the civilian world your boss can't send you to jail--or put you up against a wall and shoot you!--if you say "to hell with this, I quit." Soldiers don't have that option, nor could armies function if they did.

3. The types of people involved are different. There are plenty of people in the military, especially officers but a fair number of NCOs as well, who are primarily concerned with climbing the career ladder. Some of them even get MBAs! And they tend to be really lousy soldiers. In peacetime, they're a constant irritation, and in wartime, they get people killed for no good reason. If Uncle Sam's training can't knock the self-absorption and amorality out of these people, where there are a lot fewer of them than there are in the typical corporate environment, it seems unlikely that some bizarre watered-down civilian version will do so, especially when they work in an environment where sociopathy is rewarded and any genuine concern for the welfare of your subordinates is regarded as weakness.

So there it is. Have I said anything above that you disagree with?

Maybe everyone should stop using a lousy movie as a guide to real-world debates about medical ethics.

For the reasons I gave in the post I linked to, and which other posters expanded on in the thread. If you don't want to bother reading through it [shrug] that's not my problem.

Rather than repeat myself, I'll just say that I give my reasons for rejecting the idea that this will reap any of the same benefits as military basic training does here. Short version: business isn't war, and the corporate world's half-assed attempts to play soldier are doomed to failure.

Every con man trying to sell you on the latest management fad will show you "measurable metrics" (and will often use silly phrases just like that) to prove that their Latest And Greatest will make things better. Which means, of course, that last year's Latest And Greatest, and the one from the year before that, and the year before that, are all bullshit--but this Latest And Greatest is the real deal! Trust me! We've got metrics!

Whatever. As a statistician, I smell cherry-picking. And it's amazing how easily you can pick a few cherries out of a big pile of bullshit, if you're willing to dig long enough.

No they're not. Not even close. The defining aspect of war is two (or more) large armed groups trying to kill each other. Not in the metaphorical "we're going to kill the competition" way, but in the actual piles-of-corpses, starving-refugees, survivors-crippled-for-life way. If you think that's what business looks like, it's because you have no idea what war looks like, and I envy you your ignorance.

The other basics of military life, like honor, discipline, and mutual respect? Only if you're very, very lucky. Since getting out of the service, I've worked for a couple of businesses that had these, and far more that didn't. Most other veterans will tell you the same. To be sure, there are compensations--even if I were physically up to it, I'd rather live my civilian life than be back in uniform, all in all--but in those aspects, the military world has the business world beat all to hell.

Other posters have already addressed your other points. I urge you to read what they wrote carefully.

Okay, you caught me. Guess I'll have to find some other group of running-dog lackeys to subvert to the cause of the glorious peoples' revolution of the international brotherhood of the proletariat. ;)

Attempts to apply military methods to civilian business tend to fail dramatically, because:

1. Business is not war.

2. Corporations are not armies.

3. Corporate imitations of military training are almost invariably done by and for spoiled brat MBA types who love to think of themselves as macho warriors, but wouldn't last five minutes humping a pack and a rifle.

No, it's just yet another stupid "corporate training regime" designed to separate MBAs from their and everyone else's money. Which wouldn't be a problem, except for the "everyone else" part--companies actually spend money on this kind of crap instead of on things like, you know, salary and benefits for the people who actually do the work that keeps the company in business. And there are more and more of these parasites infecting the corporate world every year, which ought to be enough to convince the Invisible Hand cultists that maybe there's something wrong with their cherished idea that the market weeds out inefficient management ... except they're all too busy congratulating themselves on buying into the latest bullshit fad to pay attention.

No, unfortunately it's political science.

We have a bastardized combo of waterfall and agile here. I call it the Drunken Sailor approach.

What DO you do with a drunken sailor?

Typically, you start working er'ly in the morning. And stay at it till the even'n's glomming.

-- MarkusQ

My fiancee just pointed out to me that the site where this appeared, sott.net, is borderline woo-woo. And there aren't any citations in the story AFAICT. So while an entire grain of salt might be two much, I'd say to keep a few crystals handy until a reliable citation shows up. Sorry about that.

For broad enough definitions of "majority."