Andy, yes being ex-military (>29 years) and now working in industry, there is much that can be learned from the disciplines, structured thinking, processes, risk management, teamwork, systems thinking, and planning processes within the military. Military management and leadership is not perfect, but I think those organisations that take on-board veterans greatly benefit. However, there does still seem to be a big misunderstanding and stigma against those moving from a military career into a civilian career and that many inherent skills and expertise servicemen have are not well articulated and accepted in industry (leadership; management; planning; resource exploitation; personal discipline; risk management and rapid adaptation; inter-personal skills; systems thinking; etc).


One area that I am aware that veterans have found it difficult to fit in is the NHS and its management approach, the ethos and culture.


Some approaches that would potentially be effective in many organisations are that of 'Commander's intent' - i.e. all understanding what the Boss's end point or outcome is required - the 'ends' - and 'mission command' - i.e providing the resources, guidance and initiative (the 'ways' and means') for local teams to deliver what is required within the bigger picture. However, this does need a clear understanding of 'the end' bigger picture requirement, understanding 'what my role is' in the outcome required, and a balanced centralised/de-centralised ('ways' and 'means') approach to trust people to use resources effectively and efficiently at a local contextual level, but within an overall policy, strategy, and service delivery framework. It would be anarchy if everyone was allowed to whatever, but, within a guiding more efficient NHS or organisational command structure, military approaches would probably help in many cases.


Other ingredients that need to be present is trust in, and, a competent leadership team, the ability and encouragement to innovate, take the initiative, benefit from success, a true teamwork ethic from cleaner to Cabinet minister/CEO, learn rapidly from failure, adopting and adapting best practice, to be held to account, managers to be leaders and have their staff on board, standardisation of data and IT, reward success and initiative, etc.


These times provide a great opportunity to share best practice between departments and the military and industry.

Well said Maurice. However I have an example that highlights something you missed from your post. I was involved in the investigation about what had gone wrong which is why I know the details.


There was an incident on a ship which resulted in loss of the 440V network, though the 6.6kV generators and switchboards remained powered, but of course the continued operation of the generators relies on the 440V system for auxiliary pumps, etc. so it can only continue for a very short time. There are Standard Operating Procedures which detail what to do under any conceivable circumstance - unfortunately loss of the LV but not the HV had not been conceived as possible and therefore there were no instructions, and the weather was pretty much a gale at the time and the ship was close to shore. The Chief Engineer and crew had to make up their SOPs as they went along and managed to keep power going and keep the ship safe through a combination of excellent training and a knowledge of the systems. It is in these two latter points that I think the military often come into their own, particularly nowadays when systems are getting more and more complex.


I have to add that I am not in, nor have I ever been in, the military, but I have worked with the military and seen many good things. However, like Maurice, I don't think they are perfect and in some areas they can definitely learn from industry so cross fertilisation would benefit all.


Alasdair

Alastair,


Sounds like a classic failure in the systems design thinking, less than rigorous risk management, perhaps an element of group think and not enough challenging within the team, a fundamental poor assumption that only one power ring system could never have a fault/failure (all systems fail), no power distribution redundancy, or a single point of failure, a weakness in the Fault Tree Analysis methodology, and perhaps some limited 'thinking the unthinkable'.


Could have been overcome, or minimised at least, with some robust, or better, Failure Mode, Effects & Criticality Analysis (FMECA) quantitative failure analysis. The FMECA involves creating a series of linkages between potential failures (Failure Modes), the impact on the mission (Effects) and the causes of the failure (Causes and Mechanisms) - some basic 'what if this fails or malfunctions' questioning of every element of a system hardware and software.


One could argue this lack of system fault analysis was why the Royal Navy Type 45 Destroyers had such an expensive and alongside period due to the well documented power/cooling/propulsion problem still being resolved. The more complex and too software reliant a design, the more vulnerable and likely to have failures and faults. Need to get back to the KISS (Keep It Simple and Safe) principle, especially to provide robust, basic failsafe, minimum functionality operating capability in high risk environments. 


Fortunately, in your scenario you had a chief engineer and technical team who could do proper engineering and fault circumvention. Unfortunately, as many organisations down-skill and rely more on out-sourcing of key engineering and technical skills, and greater reliance on HUMS and automated fault analysis and reporting systems, the basic engineering skills needed in these critical scenarios are rapidly fading and being lost with the retirement of the older workforce. Time for re-introduction second and third line engineering and maintenance skills, especially when operating in remote and isolated scenarios where it is impossible or difficult to bring in SMEs, or rely on robust tele-maintence and remote technical support, etc.


Design and train in peace/normal mode as you need to operate in war/failure mode.

Hi,


I think Alasdair's example exactly encapsulates the situation I'm considering. Yes, we all do our best with our structured Hazops, FMECAs, FTAs, ETAs, bow ties etc etc (and they are all extremely good techniques which I happily train people in and recommend) but they will never capture every real world situation. So the challenge is how to make sure that the team on the ground precisely follow the requirements that flow out of these analyses for the 99% of the time that it makes sense for them to do so, without being so unquestioning of them that they can't still identify and adapt to scenarios that were simply never anticipated in the backroom analysis. With safety critical systems we can't afford mavericks, but equally we can't afford unquestioning reliance on the responsibility and competence of others.


Without wanting to stop discussion of any other ideas in this, I'm particularly interested in Maurice's comment about 'Commander's intent', can you explain more on this? Also (and I guess this is related) there must be situations where the squaddie realises (because they are on the ground) that the command advice seems to be wrong, how is that managed in the military these days? Are there lessons we can apply to create a culture where people really understand "follow these rules precisely, but equally you have the right to speak up the instant you think there's a problem"?


I'm very happy to discuss the issues of military people moving into the civilian world but please let's keep that for a separate thread...try and keep this one for moving ideas rather than people!


Thanks,


Andy

Hi Andy, I was thinking how best to describe 'Commander's Intent' then found this which is a reasonable explanation


"Commander’s Intent means explaining why something must be done when assigning a task to someone. The more your agent understands the purpose behind what must be done, the better he/she will do it. By being clear about the purpose behind a plan, others can act toward that goal without the need of constant communication."

https://personalmba.com/commanders-intent/ 


It is also more than that, in terms of the wider context of achieving an outcome and setting follow on conditions that are required from the initial outcome/task.


So for instance, saying to a team leader 'I need you and your team to achieve X in two months using these resources' might seem to allow initiative and (mission command), but depending on how the result is achieved might end in a positive or negative follow on context. For instance, if a team leader achieves the task in two months, or less, with the resources provided, or more efficiently, but in the process damages the company reputation, has the best in the team leave, undermines another team's contributing part, or backs the company into a corner which doesn't allow further advantage beyond stage 1, then that is limited use of Commander's Intent in a 'tactical' bubble.


However, it would be better to provide the team leader with the bigger picture within which his task must succeed. So perhaps a better task would be "I need you and your team to build your team skills and cohesion in achieving X using these resources, as the first step of increasing customer satisfaction and retention, developing new business opportunities, increasing our reputation to attract new talent and being a lead as an ethical and responsible business'.


Such a bigger picture contextual briefing provides the 'tactical' intent of achieving the immediate task, but explains this task in the context of the 'operational level' intent of growing the business, within the overall strategic context of being a vanguard ethical/responsible operating company (a B Corporation perhaps). It also provides the answer to the military campaign planning question of those delivering the Commander's Intent at all levels - what is my part in the plan/strategy in achieving the Commander's Intent?

I think the example I gave more closely aligned with Andy's idea that we don't capture every real world situation rather than a failure in systems thinking. Even knowing what had happened it took us time to work out how a failure on an item of equipment only connected to the 6.6KV distribution caused the failure of the LV system but not the HV system. (I won't go into it here but if you want to discuss over a beer sometime it is quite interesting).


I think it is an interesting comment from Andy about people who "follow the rules precisely". I have seen this also where people have followed what appear to be sensible decisions but when viewed as part of the overall situation they should have done something else entirely. (The one I am thinking of here I am also willing to discuss over a second beer.... yet again a failure that nobody was able to predict and took a couple of days to identify).


I can follow Maurice's thoughts but I think that too much of this comes down to the personalities and politics of the workplace. The idea of providing the bigger picture is one that I would always want to follow, but too often I have seen managers who want to control what is going on beneath them and opt for the first scenario.

Great contribution Roy.

Hello, 

in the eyes of every engineer in every field there must be a leader and it comes with years of experience (not everyone who has a degree can manage and lead). The experience in systems is very complicated today because the technology is advancing very fast. so what are we doing ? Patience, charisma, and work experience in my eyes lead to leadership (of course giving time to learn systems and the need to understand and apply with the help of technical literature, because there is no end to studies, as much as you learn there is still something to learn).

Hi Roy,

And that's exactly the bit I'm interested in - how is that developed in a very hierarchical and structured organisation?

Also, I am thinking wider than just engineering, exactly the same thing must apply to combat troops these days?


Thanks,


Andy